Cabot Cove syndrome

English Etymology Named from the fictional setting of the long-running US television series Murder, She Wrote. Noun - Cabot Cove syndrome en humorous The situation where, in order to create storylines for a detective drama, the protagonist encounters far more murders than is plausible. en 2012 John Charles Candace Clark Joanne Hamilton-Selway The Readers' Advisory Guide to Mystery 20 If an author cannot figure out some credible way to introduce murder into an amateur sleuth's life, the writer risks creating a detective who suffers from the dreaded Cabot Cove syndrome