“Just one more thing ...” the rumpled TV detective Columbo was fond of saying, right before he caught that week’s killer in his or her fatal flaw that caused the whole ‘perfect murder’ scenario to unravel.

Guess what? It doesn’t happen like that. Real police work takes years of training, and is often slow, meticulous, tedious and, well, un-telegenic. Although Jessica Fletcher, Matlock, and myriad CSI characters make it look easy, and in fact encourage our own armchair sleuthing, that’s not the way it works in the real world.