I’m pathetically ill with a bad cold this week (currently my chest and belly muscles HURT from all the coughing). No it’s not covid. Just a cold, and I’m a giant sad sack of runny nose and cough. Idleness and TV and maybe cold meds have me going weird places with curiosity.
I need some math help here. You know how PBS shows like Father Brown or Grantchester have some vicar in a village without enough to do getting himself involved in various (usually murder) crimes? Well, maybe you don’t know because you’re not as nerdy as me, but there’s a whole cosy mystery genre based on a small town/village clergy person solving murders.
There’s also a whole genre of mystery about medical examiners solving murders. Think Quincy MD or Crossing Jordan. Those MEs are ALWAYS working in a big city, like Boston.
Presumably the clergy types have the time to get involved with crime solving because they live in a small enough town they aren’t swamped by their normal job, right? And in real life, a medical examiner in a massive city would absolutely not have time to solve crimes between autopsies, would they?
So where’s the crossing vector of population between “small enough town to allow a full time clergy/medical examiner to solve murders as a hobby” and “big enough town to have murders to solve” without getting into “so much activity/population the hobbyist’s day job doesn’t allow for crime busting”?
No Pithy Phrase 