Okay--maybe there are dumber ones. But this one is pretty dumb:
The bad guys (or vampires in hiding) set up in a SMALL TOWN.
And...they get pinpointed and "outed."
Well, duh. The whole point of the small town is that "everyone knows your name." It's all about the regulars, what so-and-so is doing this week. The sheriff quite literally walks around and asks folks how they are doing.
I give a pass to Andy Griffith's "Aunt Bee Gets a Job" in part because the counterfeiters ARE stupid. They are EXACTLY the type of people who would buy into the trope. And their clients are equally stupid since one of them exchanges Aunt Bee's employment check for part of his fake cash. In truth, I quite enjoy the episode since I like the Andy Griffith "case" episodes. Andy puts together clues. The episode also offers some truly hilarious moment.s
But when the author actually thinks "oh, of course, nobody will find us in this tiny town!" I have to surmise that the author is too dumb for me to read.
Sayers explains in Unnatural Death better than everyone why CITY is the better hiding place:
To the person who has anything to conceal--to the person who wants to lose his identity as one leap among the leaves of a forest--to the person who asks no more than to pass by and be forgotten, there is one name above others which promises a haven of safety and oblivion. London. Where no one know his neighbour. Where shops do not know their customers. Where physicians are suddenly called to unknown patients whom they never see again. Where you may lie dead in your house for months together unmissed and unnoticed till the gas-inspector comes to look at the meter. Where strangers are friendly and causal. London, whose rather untidy and grubby bosom is the repository of so many odd secrets. Discreet, incurious, and all-enfolding London.
Parker still tracks down the information he wants, but it takes him trekking through 37 law offices to find a witness. A less dedicated law officer would have give up!
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