It was Random Joe, on Your Porch, With His Teeth

Imagine the scene: A famed detective gathers everyone in the drawing room and lays out the evidence. "Ah, but it is clear," she says. "Someone among us even now got drunk last evening and punched a dude in the face." Or, in a darkened interrogation room, the hardboiled cop leans over the table and says, "Listen, we know you swiped that lawn mower." No, not as dramatic as what lands in crime novels, but sucker punches and swiped Cub Cadets are the crimes most people commit.

The FBI's Crime Data Explorer statistics for the last five years (select categories):

For data nerds, how I pulled the FBI reported crime numbers is post-scripted below. 

Here, I'll stipulate a couple of things: 1) Any murder is one too many and 2) Crime stats are full of unreported incidents and societal biases. My point is that we porch-pirate or pick-pocket each other a lot. A whole lot. Or gnawing on each other--literally. The top weapon involved in aggravated assault is "personal," which is Fed-speak for fists, feet, teeth, any body part. And then there are those seven million simple assaults.

Murder has the inherent stakes and drama to pump up fiction, but that level of malice is proportionately rare. A bloody business, too. I'm of the Raymond Chandler school. People don't take malice as far as murder without a damn deadly sin involved. The FBI data say that some type of gun was used in 75% of reported murders. Knives, vehicles, and blunt objects account for most of the rest. Nowhere near topping the list is overly elaborate murders or killings for the sake of a puzzle. Even comic mysteries--which I love--need a non-trivial motive. Without it, the whole thing can feel hollow. Somebody got killed, y'all. 

If these stats are a guide, the data say Americans are running 13 times more con games than murder plots and 25 times more burglary rings. The petty stuff also makes for excellent studies of human flaws and motivations. Urgencies and justifications, delusions and miscalculations. What can be more human? I think this is why I gravitate toward small-change bumblers. 

The FBI stats say that about three times as many homicides are of family or acquaintances than strangers. Aggravated assault is closer to two-to-one acquainted. Burglary is about fifty-fifty, and vehicle theft swipes a stranger's car twice as much as a friend's ride. Things get more random as they get more small-time. This leaves more room to explore an idea, or it does for me. Plus, I'm talking fiction. Bumbler fiction. Things must inevitably get out of hand, and in sneaks the stakes and danger. 

Write enough stories, though, and you get around to most everything. A few years ago, I wrote a spin on a manor mystery, even down to the dead guy as story device. I like to think that one subverts manor mysteries as much as it upholds tradition. A quick scan of my story tracker shows I've bumped off six characters by murder (however justified), or one every four crime stories. As side mayhem, I also have a manslaughter, a suicide, and two characters left to their likely death. But there are still the other three-fourths where nobody got killed. The story didn't need the murder. Why force one? 

The FBI numbers bear me out. It's a big, criminal world out there, and most people have a little crook in them given the right or wrong moment. 

But hang on. Golden Age Mystery fans, there is something in the FBI data for you. 727 homicides in the five-year period were by narcotics/sleeping pills. Fifty-one were by poisoning. 1,092 were attributed to a cryptically categorized "other." That's right. No category exists to capture the deed. 

Summon the famous detective. Unexplained methods are mystery story inspiration if I've ever seen it.

Postscript: About those FBI Crime Data Explorer stats...

The crime counts aren't static across all reported elements. It must depend on completeness of reporting, multiple elements per report, etc. So. For as consistent a count as possible:

• The data was as of November 2, 2024.
• I used crimes reported, not arrest counts. It's notionally more inclusive and maybe avoids some inequities seen in arrest rates. 
• Within the "Crime" tab, I used the "Offender Age" section as my official incidents count. I used percentages for all other stats.