The Red Herring in a Mask: Decoy Suspects and Love Interests by M. Jayne LaDow
Let’s welcome back monthly columnist M. Jayne LaDow as she shares with us “The Red Herring in a Mask: Decoy Suspects and Love Interests.” Enjoy!
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A red herring is, at its core, a costume.
A character or thing disguised to trick us — the suspect with the convenient alibi, the love interest who says all the right things.
And like any costume, it only works if it’s convincing.
Nobody’s ever been fooled by a bedsheet with two eye holes cut out.
Which is, coincidentally, the whole plot of Halloween.
Same Skeleton, Different Costume
Strip a red herring down to its bones, and a simple structure appears: a character built to look like the perfect answer.
In a mystery, the suspect with the obvious motive and the alibi is the person the detective really, really wants it to be because it would be so satisfying. In a romance, it’s the charming love interest.
The one who says all the right things, who the protagonist starts rooting for like it’s a contest.
How many of us were rooting for Tamlin in A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas?
Be honest.
All of us?
And then Maas taught us a thing or two about romantic red herrings.
The decoy has to feel like a legitimate answer before we can enjoy discovering it isn’t.
Plausibility is the costume.
Both mystery and romance authors are, in a sense, running a little con on the reader — a fun one, if it’s done right.
Because the goal isn’t to fool the reader, it’s to make them fool themselves.
The Three Things Every Decoy Needs
1. A genuine reason for being included
The decoy suspect needs a real reason to be at the scene and a real secret, even if it isn’t the one the detective is looking for.
The decoy love interest can’t be a cardboard placeholder waiting to be dumped.
They need their own reason to want the protagonist, their own place in the story — even if they’re not the person the protagonist belongs with.
In my novel, A Pilgrimage of Whispered Truths, Brian’s father does a lot of things a reader expects from someone hiding something.
He’s related to the victim, yet hustles his family out of a funeral early.
He has tense words with a stranger nobody can place.
He’s clearly on edge.
But his reasons for being on edge have to exist independently of the mystery.
He has a real job, a real family to protect, and a real reason to be uncomfortable around certain people.
His behavior can’t exist solely because I needed the reader to suspect him.
Half-built decoys read as half-built decoys.
Readers can smell a character who only exists to be wrong, the same way you can spot the guy at the Halloween party whose costume is just his regular clothes and a plastic pumpkin bucket.
2. A trait that reads two ways
The best red herrings have a quality that looks sinister in one light and completely innocent in another.
Nervousness that could be guilt — or is just a guy who’s terrible at eye contact.
In romance, a love decoy might look devoted in one light and controlling in another; the perfect boyfriend one day might be a loser the next.
In The Deal, the first book of Elle Kennedy’s Off-Campus series, Justin Kohl isn’t a placeholder.
He’s the reason Hannah has spent a semester quietly pining after him, and that crush kicks off the fake-dating scheme.
He’s a real target with real weight in the story, just not the person the story is ultimately about.
Authors aren’t lying to the reader; they hand the reader a flashlight and let their own assumptions do the work.
3. A door that closes for a reason
A red herring can’t be written off-page like a guest slipping out at the end of a party.
They need to reach the end of their arc.
Perhaps a lie unravels, or their self-interest slips, and suddenly the reader can see what’s underneath the costume.
This is where a lot of books and shows need to take better care.
Pretty Little Liars is an example.
After years of red herrings and suspects, the show’s final reveal pinned everything on a character the audience had never met: a secret twin with no meaningful connection to the story.
It wasn’t a door closing.
It was a door bolted on at the last minute.
And readers notice.
They know when an author has pulled a new rabbit out of a hat instead of revealing the rabbit from chapter three.
Why This Is Worth Noticing on Halloween
Costumes make an unusually good metaphor for red herrings because a disguise isn’t really a lie.
Everyone at the party knows it’s fake.
Half the fun is guessing who’s underneath.
A good red herring works the same way.
The genre-savvy reader already assumes something is being hidden.
An author isn’t trying to dupe them so much as invite them to follow the clues and figure out who’s in the costume before it’s revealed.
Giving the reader a fair, fun chase.
The Tell
Here’s the thing both genres share, and it’s easy to miss:
The unmasking should recontextualize, not contradict.
Go back and reread the decoy’s scenes after the reveal.
The good ones still hold up and nothing about the character changes.
The nervous suspect really was hiding something — just not murder.
The charming love interest really did want the protagonist — just not for the reasons that would have made a good ending.
The payoff is in the reread.
That’s the difference between a decoy and a cheap trick.
A good red herring says, You knew. I showed you.
That’s the sting — and the satisfaction.
Which, if you think about it, is also good advice for trick-or-treating and for stories: don’t be the person whose costume gives up the game.
Let the reveal earn the payoff because the best costume hides just enough to make you look twice, and the reward tastes like candy when it’s written right.
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About the Author
M. Jayne Ladow writes rom-com and mystery romance where banter hides more heat than jokes.
Follow her on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook @mjayneladowauthor, read more on Substack at mjlong.substack.com, and visit mjladow.com for her full catalog and latest releases.
Curious about A Pilgrimage of Whispered Truths?
Here is the blurb:
Dani Jones thought surviving her seventeenth year of teaching would be the hardest part of her summer.
Then a student’s uncle corners her after class with a warning — and disappears before she can make sense of it.
Days later, during a Chesapeake Bay cleanup, Dani finds his body hidden in the marsh, and the quiet coastal town she’s called home for years starts giving up secrets it should have buried for good.
Gavin Larkhurst, a radio newsman with a protective streak and a voice made for late-night confessions, wants Dani far away from the arson, greed, and old lies clawing their way to the surface.
But the deeper she digs, the harder he falls — torn between keeping her safe and letting her run straight toward the danger neither of them can walk away from.
Set in June 1997 Virginia Beach, A Pilgrimage of Whispered Truths is a steamy mystery romance where every whispered truth comes with a price — and not everyone survives paying it.
You can purchase it here.
Freebie
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Audrey Freemont, a professional middle school teacher, hasn’t had time or energy to find romance in five years.
When she sees Oz Taylor at a school happy hour, it’s one look, and they are sneaking out.
But after the one-night stand, reality catches up with them.
He’s the new algebra teacher at Marchfield Middle, and he wants more, but Audrey is caught between the world of expectations for teachers and her desire for more than a workaholic life.
