It worked well with the book >!The Murder of Roger Ackroyd!< since at that point, it was a firmly established rule of the mystery genre that the narrator couldn’t be the killer of the story. In fact, >!Agatha Christie!< was a member of the Detection Club which practiced the Knox Decalogue of mystery rules, one of which was “The Narrator can’t be the killer”.

Also, there was an episode of the TV series McDonald & Dodds that does this rather well and makes perfect sense in context. >!The “Victim” was a social media influencer who wanted to quit but was being stalked by an obsessive fan so made use of an upcoming plastic surgery procedure to switch places with the fan to make her think she could get a procedure for free, instead using it as a means of murdering the fan and faking her own death as she fled the country.!<

The Agatha Christie story “The Body In The Library” is a good example of a mockery of a trope that so thoroughly killed it that no-one remembers the original trope.

But in mystery stories, it was common for a dead body to turn up in a library with a mystery being about how the killer got in or out, often due to a closed room mystery. A secret passage or a means to sneakily enter and leave the room without anyone knowing. The library itself had a spectacular element to it that facilitated the mystery.

But what made the book so unique was the fact that there was nothing of note about the library - it had no secret passages, the doors weren’t locked, there was no reason to keep it isolated at all, nothing.

What makes the story so strange was the fact that a random-ass corpse just turned up out of nowhere.

I know a lot of stories are based on heroes foiling some evil ritual or plan, so their learning about said event helps add some tension as they realise the villain is about to win.

It was actually used pretty well in the game Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havok which often features narrations from the main character. Considering that main character Makoto Naegi has just found the game’s first of many murder victims and >!it was the character set up as his main love interest throughout the early parts of the game!<, it actually does work well since he also mentions that he was screaming until he fainted.

They also changed it for the game’s anime adaptation where it turns into the ad break of the episode.

Also used well in the Agatha Christie story Cat Among The Pigeons which has the twist of it being seen from an outside perspective. As Poirot notes, >!Mrs Chadwick murdering Ms Vansittart!< was a mistake of impulsiveness and as he explains, the “mind rebels” causing them to let out a horrified scream.