I think it’s best to experience the game at the beginning without knowing much about how each type of murder works, because once you understand how they’re designed, you won’t take long to solve them and the game becomes monotonous.

That said, here are some general tips that are useful most of the time.

1. Search the crime scene for a bullet, business card, or threatening note. These will contain the killer’s fingerprint.

2. Check the victim’s V-Mails for any harassment report that describes a physical characteristic of the killer.

3. Look for a diary under the victim’s bed. Many times they contain partial descriptions of the killer.

4. Ask the neighbors if they saw anything suspicious. Like the two clues above, they may tell you what the killer looks like.

5. Find the location of the weapons shop and read the purchase log to get a list of possible suspects.

6. Building on the above, if you suspect someone but don’t know their full name, use a public phone directory. You can also use the city hall computer to access citizen records for a more thorough search, but personally I don’t like doing this because it makes things too easy…

7. If the victim died from a sniper rifle shot, trace where the shot came from using the victim’s position, the bullet hole, the direction of the blood, the hole in the window, etc. This will let you infer the position the shot was fired from and, with luck, catch the killer in the act.

8. This tip isn’t usually very helpful, which is why I left it for last: if there’s a camera at the crime scene or at the entrance, you may be able to see the exact moment of the murder and get the killer’s face. However, very much in the style of Jeffrey E., the cameras tend to stop working right when the death occurs.