Clues & Culprits › Clue types › Common-neighbor clues
Common-neighbor clues
Counts of the people who neighbor both of two suspects.
Gus and I have exactly one criminal neighbor in common.
A common-neighbor clue looks at the overlap of two frames: people who touch both suspects. Two side-by-side suspects in the middle share four neighbors; suspects two apart share two or three.
How to read it
Work out the overlap first (hover over the names to light them up). Then treat it as an ordinary budget: "exactly one criminal neighbor in common" means one criminal among the shared cells.
How it combines with other clues
This clue is built to work with neighbor counts. If you know one suspect's frame total and the shared part, you know the unshared part, which can settle people on the far side.
Real examples from recent cases
Gus and I have exactly one criminal neighbor in common.— Freya, engineer (B2) in Oct 25, 2026 Medium: The Loaf That Ticked
Tess and I have exactly one criminal neighbor in common.— Rufus, engineer (B5) in Oct 25, 2026 Medium: The Loaf That Ticked
Mila and I have exactly one criminal neighbor in common.— Ezra, art therapist (A2) in Oct 25, 2026 Hard: An Allergy to Tuesdays
Ruby and I have no criminal neighbors in common.— Yusuf, postie (E5) in Oct 25, 2026 Evil: Duck 1,417 Wins by Thirty Yards
Questions
What does “Gus and I have exactly one criminal neighbor in common.” prove?
Counts of the people who neighbor both of two suspects.
Where do common-neighbor clues appear most?
Mostly in Hard and Evil cases, where steps need several clues at once.
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