Crime Stories

Which stereotypes and cliches are you sick of in crime novels?

Are there character traits that you never want to read about again? Crimes you're sick of? Tell me which things happen too often, why some characters seem to be the same, etc. I'm writing a crime novel and want to know what's boring, what's overdone, and what's not.

Public Comments

1. the foreigner or the jumped-up middle class person. they ALWAYS did it in agatha christies.
2. The big blonde has to have big boobs and has to be a moron on the level of a four year old. The suspended disbelief required to buy into that stupidity just to advance a plot should also have the author suspended. You just know if she is in the story, that the author is about to pull something so transparently stupid that it is not worth further reading.
3. I'm so over the femme fatale. I mean really I know that men can be taken in by a pretty face, but I'm so over the woman who is blatantly using the males in the story to her advantage. I mean don't get me wrong, her using her sexuality is a plot teaser, but seriously why does EVERYONE fall for her? Give me something a little less one dimensional.
4. The detective thats always drinking and can get any woman.