Cindy asked Julia Buckley:

Julia, my dear Mystery and Literature expert, is there a term for implausible deductions in the mystery genre? I'm thinking of elaborate sets of clues solved in obscure ways by the sleuth. Batman often does this to comic effect, but my current read, Paper Towns by John Green, has the main character lucking into clues that no mere mortal would find and finding connections with gravity-defying leaps of logic.

Julia Buckley Not a term that I know of, but your term "implausible deduction" works well. :) Sherlock Holmes always said of his deductive reasoning that "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." This doesn't apply, however, to someone merely thinking up a solution rather than following a trail of clues.

It's difficult to create those clues in such a way that your character sees them but your reader does not--but you still have to play fair with the reader and give them a chance to solve it along with your detective. And no one wants a sleuth who simply knows without doing the work. That's tantamount to the Deus Ex Machina solution.

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