Frame Up / Literature

• The villain's Evil Plan in the ninth Alex Rider book, Scorpia Rising, is to frame Alex (and, by implication, the British government) for the assassination of the American Secretary of State and use the evidence to blackmail the government. Had it succeeded, the evidence would have been fairly damning, as the (intended) real killer was Alex's clone. Sort of.
• In Bad Mermaids: On Thin Ice, Sabrina, who teaches spy school in Fortress Bay, really wants a sea witch at the school. She frames the witch Gronnyupple for theft so she can offer her a chance to escape prison by working at Fortress Bay.
• In the Book of Genesis, Joseph plants his own valuable goblet in Benjamin's grain bag, then has Benjamin arrested for "stealing" it. It's all part of a Secret Test of Character, to see if the other brothers would abandon Benjamin, like they had abandoned Joseph himself years ago. (They pass the test by begging for mercy towards Benjamin, so Joseph comes clean about the entire ruse.)
• The Cat Who... Series: In book #19 (The Cat Who Tailed a Thief), part of the plot involves a string of thefts, the work of a kleptomaniac, in December. Most of the stolen goods turn up in Lenny Inchpot's locker, which Qwill finds suspicious; by the end of the book, he's vindicated when it's proven that someone involved with the real thief had stashed them there as a frame job.
• Chocoholic Mysteries: In Moose Motive, the actual killer murdered someone who'd been causing trouble for him, then arranged for another person to find the body, knowing the police would automatically suspect her (since she was already a suspect in the first murder) as a result.
• The Chronicles of Dorsa: Tasia is framed for having her own father murdered by Wise Man Norix, her tutor and his chief advisor, along with Mylla, her former lover/handmaid.
• The eponymous detective in The Continental Op treats all investigations as a frame-up: he gathers evidence, discovers likely victims, and then attempts to get one into the frame. If they are guilty, then that's nice but incidental to getting paid.
• The Crowner John Mysteries: In Crowner's Quest, the conspirators frame John for rape so he can be tried in a Kangaroo Court and executed.
• The backstory of the Dr. Thorndyke novel Mr. Pottermack's Oversight involves a bank clerk being framed for a series of forgeries that were actually committed by one of his colleagues.
• In Eric, or Little by Little, Barker steals Eric's ink and wafers, uses the ink to write a note that says 'Mr Gordon is a surly devil' while carefully mimicking Eric's handwriting, and sticks the note to the board using one of the wafers. Barker hopes Eric will be flogged for it. Instead, Dr Rowlands decides to have a trial. An older boy named Gibson prosecutes, and Eric's best friend Russell defends him. Russell uncovers several pieces of evidence that Eric was framed. When Owen testifies that he found the paper Barker wrote on while learning to copy Eric's handwriting, Barker breaks down and confesses. Barker is forced to run a gauntlet of dozens of boys beating him with knotted handkerchiefs. The next morning he's flogged and expelled.
• In The Expanse novel Abaddon's Gate, Clarissa Mao aims to get revenge on James Holden for ushering her dear daddy's downfall, and so she sabotages a few spaceships that have congregated around the Ring and makes it look like Holden's job by having her agent hide a device aboard his ship Rocinante, which would hijack this ship to transmit a forged recording of him apparently claiming the Ring for the Outer Planets Alliance, an organization that at this time is still seen by the "Inners" as little more than terrorists.
• Forgotten Realms: In Speaking with the Dead by Elaine Cunningham (Realms of Mystery), Elaith Craulnober is accused of a murder but swears that he didn't do it. Danilo Thann (of all people) has to defend him...
  Danilo: Consider my dilemma. Even under the best of circumstances, "innocent" is not the first word that comes to mind when your name is mentioned.
• In Dunk, this happens to Chad three times.
  • In chapter 5, Chad is accused of stealing sunglasses from the Royal Cabana, when it was his enemy Anthony Glover that did it.
  • In chapter 19, due to Jason's odd behavior, he and Chad are mistaken for druggies.
  • In chapter 34, Chad is yet again mistaken for a druggie, though instead of being framed for simply taking it, he's framed for being a supplier, not helping that money he'd been making working at the dunk tank as a ball boy is mistaken for drug money. Luckily, his tenant Malcolm explained everything.
• Fate/Zero:
  • Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald clumsily tries to frame Kiritsugu Emiya by murdering Risei Kotomine with a revolver, thinking that since Kiritsugu uses guns, everyone will think he did it. Nobody is fooled because Kiritsugu doesn't use revolvers; his main weapons are a single-shot Thompson/Center Contender and a Calico submachine gun.
  • Berserker, under Kariya Matou's orders, abducts Irisviel von Einzbern while using his For Someone's Glory ability to look like Rider. This causes Saber to think Rider did it and attack him.
• "Galley Slave": Professor Ninheimer is a sociologist who has been writing a book for over eight years. When it finally gets published, the book is a travesty, and he claims that the robot used to proofread his work is responsible for the changes. Therefore, he is attempting to sue US Robots. However, he made the changes himself, and ordered the robot to keep silent about the issue.
• Girls Don't Hit: Joss is framed for supposedly attacking her husband's cop mistress, which then justifies her shooting her dead.
• In Gone Girl, the plot centers around a man being framed for the murder of his wife. Framed by whom, you may ask? By the wife herself.
• In The Hammer (2022), Tiny kills the Grandmaster of Philes' military by goading him into a fight behind closed doors. He then hides the body before using the Grandmaster's signature artifact sword, Grius, to murder Lord Philes in bed. This frames the Grandmaster (whose body is buried and hidden so no one will find it) for the deed, while the resulting criminal investigation gives Tiny an excuse to leave without arousing suspicion.
• Harry Potter:
  • Sirius Black was framed for the murder of Peter Pettigrew and twelve Muggles, as well as for betraying the Potters by telling Voldemort where they were hiding away by Peter Pettigrew, who was the one that betrayed the Potters and faked his death by destroying the street he and Sirius were in (killing the Muggles in the process) and transforming into his rat form.
  • As a student, Voldemort/Tom Riddle frames Hagrid for opening the Chamber of Secrets and getting a student killed, just so the attacks will seemingly stop and Hogwarts won't be closed. Hagrid gets expelled as a result. Later, Tom kills his Muggle father and grandparents, and sets it up so his uncle Morfin takes the fall for it (via modifying Morfin's memory). Finally, he kills Hephzibah Smith in order to steal Slytherin's locket and Hufflepuff's Cup and modifies the memory of her house elf Hokey so that she thinks she accidentally poisoned her mistress.
  • In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, it eventually turns out that Dolores Umbridge was the one who sent the Dementors to attack Harry and his Muggle cousin at the beginning of the book so that they could put Harry through a Kangaroo Court to silence him in regards to his (true) claim about Voldemort's return.
• In Haruhi Suzumiya, Haruhi is able to extort a computer from the Computer Club by making it look like the club president is groping Mikuru and taking photos to blackmail him. This later becomes a running gag in the Haruhi-chan spinoff, in which it's revealed Haruhi has managed to extort even more computers out of them.
• Honor Harrington: In At All Costs, the Republic of Haven is framed for several assassinations. This is so successful that it prevents the peace talks from happening, which leads to the biggest battle in the entire series of books, with the Manticore system itself under attack.
• Jaine Austen Mysteries:
  • In Shoes to Die For, the killer plans on framing her roommate Becky for Frenchie's murder so she could take Tyler as her boyfriend.
  • Conrad Devane, the killer of Killing Bridezilla, plants the bit of the drill used to sabotage the railing in Normalynne Butler's car after she made a drunken scene at the wedding ceremony.
  • In Death of a Neighborhood Witch, Peter takes the ape costume Jaine wore to the Halloween party and wears it while stabbing Cryptessa.
• In Last Sacrifice, Rose is framed for the murder of Queen Tatiana Ivashkov.
• Laughing Jack: After brutalising James yet still keeping him alive while he's nailed to the wall, Laughing Jack disappears from the way of the boy's mother's knife towards the clown, and it lands on James' heart instead. The police find her with the bloody knife and the gory mess left of her child and she's convicted to an insane asylum.
• Star Wars: Lost Stars: Ciena's mother is framed for embezzling money from the mine on Jelucan, though her strict code of honor would make it unthinkable. Though the culprit is unknown, it's most likely an Imperial official with connections who made her into the scapegoat for their own crime.
• In The Machine Gunners, Chas McGill tries to place his school rival and fellow war souvenir collector, Boddser Brown, at the top of the police's list of suspects for having stolen a downed bomber's rear-turret gun by specifically mentioning Brown and the things Chas knows Brown got from the same downed bomber in an essay.
• A Master of Djinn: Abigail framed her brother Alexander, implicating him for the different crimes she committed, though it's discovered by Fatma.
• In The Mental State, Zack plants drugs in a fascistic and sadistic prison guard office and spikes his coffee with Spice to get him high. This ultimately leads to the guard getting arrested and sentenced to the very same prison he used to work in.
• Mermaids (2001): Long ago, the sea-witch Morva prepared a potion to cure a sick baby. Her romantic rival replaced the potion with salt so that the baby died, and spread rumors that she killed it with bad magic. Morva was exiled from Tingle Reef. Now everyone in the reef thinks she's a wicked witch who will hurt anyone who gets close to her lair, even though she hasn't done anything wrong. She's eventually let back into the reef after she makes a potion to cure Murdoch of Yellow-back jellyfish venom, which is always fatal otherwise.
• In Nickel Plated, Shelby's kidnappers plant child porn and one of her shoes in her father's possession so police will think he murdered her.
• The Night Mayor is set in the City, a virtual world modeled on old Film Noir movies. The master criminal Truro Daine hides out in the City to escape justice in the real world, and Tom Tunney is sent in after him. Daine fakes his own death in a way that makes Tunney appear the only suspect, so that Tunney has to concentrate on avoiding the City's police.
• Nina Tanleven:
  • In The Ghost in the Third Row, the villain of the story tries to sabotage the play and frame the Woman in White for it. She also believes that her father Andrew Heron was the subject of one over the death of Lily Larkin and that Edward Parker was the real killer. She’s wrong.
  • During the climax of The Ghost in the Big Brass Bed, the villain decides to kill Nine, Chris and Phoebe, and intends to make it look like the result of a break-in. Fortunately, they’re stopped.
• Of Fire and Stars: Someone frames Zumorda by having an assassin attack the king of Mynaria with a dagger bearing their symbol. Dennaleia, however, recognizes it's fake since the dagger wasn't made in the way they use.
• In Pact, Duncan Behaim frames Blake Thorburn for the murder of an eight-year-old boy by the simple expedient of sending police to find him when he's trying to find the corpse of said boy while consulting the boy's ghost. The ghost isn't very happy about this, but as Duncan is an experienced wizard as well as a police officer he is unconcerned. Unfortunately for him, Blake is able to subsequently break out of his cell and frame Duncan for stealing evidence related to his case (Duncan had, in fact, taken the evidence so that Blake could not use it to arm himself), and when he tries to hit the Reset Button using his chronomancy to remove all memory of the incident from his fellow officers, he discovers that the ghost boy has stolen the charm that he needed to power such a potent effect.
• Real Mermaids: Serena's parents, Finalin and Medora, were framed for murdering the last Dame Council and imprisoned in Talisman Lake. Their real crime was criticizing the tyrannical Mermish Council. Apparently a lot of the other prisoners in Talisman Lake are there for the same reason.
• Retired Witches Mysteries:
  • During book 1, when Olivia's murder is being investigated, the police find one of her valuables hidden in the flour canister at Molly's house, left there by the killer and thief to implicate her. Fortunately, Molly is able (with advice from Olivia's ghost) to explain that it was loaned to her and hidden to keep it safe.
  • They later try to frame Larry Tyler, a werewolf, for Olivia's murder. He's cleared though.
  • In book 3, Dorothy and her father Drago are accused killing council member Makaleigh Veazy and kidnapping Hedyle, another member of the council (who's been freed by this point) to cover it up. Hedyle, who makes the accusation, is actually the one who set up Makaleigh's murder.
• In Rock of Ages, Drake Maijstral is a burglar, and famous for it. But he came to Earth for a vacation, not to steal. And if he were here to steal things, he wouldn't be so obvious about it — hiding things in the air ducts in his own room! That's an amateur move, and he's a professional! But somehow, the police aren't convinced by this argument. And jail's not the only danger here. Some of the people whose things have been stolen want him dead. If Drake can't find out who the actual thief is, and prove it, his career and his life may both be over.
• In The Secret Life of Kitty Granger, Lowell, Smythe, and their organization of Nazis plant evidence that Mr. Pryce is a communist spy so that they can blame their terrorist attack on Parliament on him.
• Shadows of the Empire: Black Sun bribes a Rebel to assassinate Luke, and makes it appear the payment came from the Empire. Luke is skeptical though, knowing Vader wants him to stay alive.
• The Sherlock Holmes spin-off novel Master of Lies by Philip Purser-Hallard features Holmes and Watson investigating a counterfeiting scheme that goes so far as to write a manuscript supposedly written by Watson himself (which is presented as most of this very novel) which basically accuses Mycroft Holmes of organising their scheme to fund his spy network, the villains' final plan being to kill Watson and frame Sherlock Holmes for it. Fortunately, the thugs sent to kill Watson underestimate him and Mrs Hudson, allowing them to defeat the criminals and determine the true identity of the forgers.
• In Shock Point, Cassie's Wicked Stepfather plants crystal meth in her room so her mother will agree to send her to Peaceful Cove, an abusive reform school.
• In The Sleeping Beauty Killer, Casey insists that she was set up for Hunter's murder by the real killer. She believes she was drugged with Rohypnol at the gala she and Hunter had attended, as despite only having two glasses of wine she quickly started to feel ill, to the point she and Hunter left the gala early. Casey claims she was so out of it she doesn't even remember getting back home and thus didn't know Hunter had been killed until she woke up on the couch hours later, went into their bedroom and found Hunter's body. Casey says it would've been easy for the killer to press the gun into her hand to get her fingerprints on it while she slept, also transferring gunshot residue onto her skin. She also points out it was highly convenient that extra Rohypnol tablets were found in her purse; the prosecution used this as evidence Casey drugged herself to support her version of events, but Casey says the killer planted the tablets to further incriminate her. Casey turns out to be right on the money.
• T*A*C*K: Judge Sweet's daughters pull some destructive Halloween pranks, then try to blame them on two kids who happen to be wearing the same costumes. Unfortunately for them, they pick Will and Toria, who promptly prove their innocence.
• In Terra Ignota, the story is kicked off when someone frames the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash' for stealing the Seven-Ten list from the Black Sakura newspaper by smuggling the list into their house. Interestingly, the investigators realize very quickly that it's a frame-job, and immediately start asking why anyone would bother to frame the bash'. It turns out to be part of a gambit to get another Seven-Ten list into the public eye, since it wasn't going to be published due to a poorly timed retirement.
• Twice in Towards Zero. When Lady Camilla Tressilian is found dead, all the immediate evidence points to Nevile Strange, who was heard arguing with her before her death. However, he turned out to have an alibi, as the maid saw that the lady was still alive after Nevile had left the house. Discovery of new evidences then points to Audrey Strange, Nevile's ex-wife... except that turns out to be false as well.
• In the Transformers: TransTech story "Gone Too Far", Jackpot & Hubcap are framed by the actual killer for the murder of a popular revolutionary, putting them in danger from the victim's gangster friends. To make matters even more fun for the duo, the police know they're innocent but play along with pretending they're guilty anyway, because they hope the duo will come across the real killer while trying to escape/clear their name.
• The Vazula Chronicles: At the end of A Kingdom Threatened, the human Heath and the dragon Reka find King Matlock trapped in a burning storehouse. Reka lifts the bar blocking the door so the guards can run in and save Matlock. Then the guards find Percival, a magic-wielder with Super-Strength who has been in conflict with Matlock, asleep behind a nearby rock. Percival says he was knocked unconscious, but because the bar blocking the door was much too heavy for a normal man to lift, Matlock and his guards think Percival tried to assassinate Matlock. Matlock has Percival taken to the dungeon to await his execution. The Record Master tried to kill Matlock and frame Percival in the hopes of getting him and other magic users executed for treason, as he sees magic users as a threat to the triple kingdoms.
• Vorkosigan Saga: In Memory, the criminal needs to frame someone, and initially tries the recently cashiered Lieutenant Vorkosigan. This backfires when the investigator who discovers the faked evidence is none other than the intended target. The criminal had already realized how bad things were by this point, but only then started to realize the irony of how the exact gaps of knowledge which ultimately render his crime pointless initially led him to decide to frame somebody who from his perspective and experience seemed a perfect candidate yet was in reality the least likely suspect possible. By the point he realized how bad his position was there was nothing for it but to confess or try a new frame-up despite no longer having the time or freedom to cleanly pull it off.
• Where Are the Children?: Nancy's family and friends start to realise she was deliberately set up to take the fall for her children's murders, meaning the true killer is someone she once knew. They also come to realise that the same killer intends to frame her for the murders of her younger children, something the reader is already aware of; Parrish carefully planned to expose Nancy's identity via an anonymous newspaper article and kidnap Missy and Michael on the seventh anniversary of the murders, hoping everyone will assume Nancy snapped upon seeing the headline and killed her children again. He nearly succeeds, but is ultimately foiled this time because Nancy's husband and friends see the holes in the scenario and convince the police to dig deeper.
• In Wulfrik, the eponymous character turns Viglunr and Sveinbjorn's attempt to frame him against them at the end of the book. Wulfrik having teleported a Norscan raid deep into the Empire, prince Sveinbjorn intends to have most of the treasure put into Wulfrik's ship, then cut the ropes connecting the Seafang to the other ships while in the Warp, leading to the victims thinking Wulfrik abandoned them to the daemons. Wulfrik instead has Sveinbjorn's flag flying from the mast and has one of his men dress up as the prince then, cuts the ropes before the other ships are in the Warp. If there are any survivors, they'll think Sveinbjorn deliberately abandoned them (the worst act of treachery since a Norscan warchief fed his own men to his ogre allies), and he begs Wulfrik to take his life but leave his name unsullied. Wulfrik does neither, and ensures Viglundr will be thought of as the one who suggested Sveinbojrn's betrayal in the first place.

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