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I will play. Is this a fair mystery book? I burned out of the last thread after the bullshit that was The Pit Prop Syndicate
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Aug 19, 2020 00:06
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Want to go back and read bits more carefully, but caught up - I don't think the condition of the bodies necessarily rules out any of the stabbier cavaliers. If I'm remembering right, the ladder down was a few stories so the fall would splat them pretty good. - It will be interesting to know if they have their keyring and if it has a hatch key. If they got there on their own, they would need to know about the hatch and ask Teacher for a key to it. If someone lured them there and opened it for them, there's more rings than keys floating around. - We have also seen an extra key; didn't the pair that helped Gideon find Harrow have a 2nd key on their ring? - All of the racing and secrecy in general seems possibly unwarranted, the whole ordeal was presented as possible for everyone to win at (or no one to win at) e: from rereading early bits The dead kids in the beginning is more of a thing. Gideon goes to that as her opening blackmail on Harrow, not the zombie parents: "You know what I know. And I'll tell them the numbers". So there's something going on there that blows up on Harrow very badly. Timeline: Year 0: 1-day old Gideon shows up, Ortus is 17, there are 199 other 0-19 year olds Year 1: Harrow is born, Ortus is 18 Year 2: Sometime between now and year 0, all 199 of the others die Year 18: Present Ideas: - Gideon is special and killing people passively (came out of the Locked Tomb?). The cuckoo line makes sense then, but why would this be bad for Harrow? - Harrow's parents did some sacrifice thing to amp up Harrow's necromancy. Either: (A) They're sacrificing all the 9th's children, Gideon lives because she is "not of the 9th but beholden to it", Ortus lives because he is too old or (B) they need sacrifices willing/offered by their parents, Gideon lives because her mother is already dead, Ortus lives because his mother refuses. Miscellaneous things: - The prison above Drearburh is pretty Chekov's gun-ish - Ortus's mom is an immigrant from the 8th who married into the 9th, which is pretty weird with how the 8th heir/cavalier is treating Gideon/Harrow. From the cast list & epigraph at the beginning, the 8th seems like the priesthood for the non-9th religion Foxfire_ fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Aug 27, 2020 |
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Aug 25, 2020 06:22
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I am suspicious that Teacher & the other priests are actually Lyctors/researchers that are really old: - When Harrow does the 9th prayer after they arrive, the priests are happy about 'continuity', which is pretty weird - Teacher occasionally refers to everyone as 'children' - Teacher spends the whole hour they are fishing the bodies up outside the basement. Extra paranoid or thinks angry ghosts would react to him specifically? - In the cast list, they are all lumped into "The Emperor <linebreak> his Lyctors <linebreak> and the priesthood of Canaan House" (how did the not-ebook version typeset this?) which seems like it's hiding something. Even the 9th great aunts got individual entries and they didn't even have dialogue. Need to go update early timeline, Harrow did a thing in the Tomb when she was 9 I think, which is before her parents died. So we've got 3 separate incidents: (A) children mass death, (B) Harrow-in-the-tomb, (C) Zombie parents, all with a lot of time in between. Suspicion list: - Teacher & the priests: Up to something, but unlikely to have killed Abigail/Magnus. Killing the testee's unless they break some rule would be pretty rude - 2nd (the army): Pressing for calling in the authorities would be pretty ballsy if they did the murders. - 3rd (?diplomacy? 'Mouth of the emperor' / gems): I'm not convinced their division is real. Their cav would have known they didn't still have the keyring. Ianthe also had that thing where she monologued into the darkness/could see Gideon lurking in the stairwell - 4th (? 'Hope of the emperor' / laurel): Probably not acting. - 5th (? 'Heart of the emperor' / circlet):  - 6th (  ): Their annoyance/curiosity at the whole situation is real, since we saw that while Gideon was spying on them. My feeling is that they're not the ones kicking off a murder spree- 7th (?art? 'Joy of the emperor' / rose): Dulcinea is weird and suspicious. She's playing to win (1 key earlier + the key Harrow/Gideon just got, avoiding personal risk). Her talking to Gideon towards the end of the trial was trending into 'give up and fry Harrow'. She also started early, Gideon's initial encounter in the garden ended with the 7th cav coming back from doing something with a door ("It is shut."). Also: what was the irregularity with her shuttle? She was fainting/spitting blood, but she does that all the time and Teacher already knew she was sick. - 8th (normal priests): Haven't been on screen much, not much to go on - 9th (black priests): Why was Harrow's pod in Sanitizer? She was working in Transference/Winnowing, went out and left a blood sweat trail back to the atrium, down another hallway to Sanitizer, made a pod, then passed out? That doesn't make sense. Steely Glint posted:Spotting what Gideon tried to use as blackmail is a nice catch. The latter idea feels more likely to me, but why would Gideon hold Harrow responsible for the deaths? At age 2 Gideon probably wouldn't even remember anything. I don't think this is the cause of them being frenemies, just something Gideon knows that wider society will wreck Harrow for. I could see zombie parents being not that bad since after her parents are dead, Harrow is the head of the 9th and can do whatever she wants with the bodies. She's signing the wrong name and doing some novel necromancy, but not actually exceeding her authority. Gideon remembering well enough and having enough proof to make people act is a problem with the idea though. Rand Brittain posted:It's definitely interesting that Teacher is all smiles and "of course you can all rise to Lyctorhood together" but is also all "by the way there are no rules." What is the intention behind this game? I don't remember him ever emphasizing 'no rules', just that he wasn't going to teach them anything or tell them what to go look at. The implication kind of depends on what's considered normal behavior. Like a real world college class doesn't start with an explicit rule to not murder the other students to improve your spot on a grading curve. Foxfire_ fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Aug 29, 2020 |
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Aug 29, 2020 19:30
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Rand Brittain posted:It's definitely interesting that Teacher is all smiles and "of course you can all rise to Lyctorhood together" but is also all "by the way there are no rules." What is the intention behind this game? Thinking about it, the Transference/Winnowing test is very different if people are cooperating. Instead of jumping to "I must posses Gideon's mind!", socially-adjusted Harrow just goes and gets one of the other necromancers to push the button to open the door, walks into the Response chamber herself, and melts the construct with no trouble. Lyctor experiment in general seems to be about creating some way to be immortal vs aging and very resistant to other destruction. The group from the 2nd study seems to have been trying to do it with a regenerating construct + possibly some way to staple their mind to it (either moving to a new constructed body or animating+regenerating their own dead one). Depending on whether the note Gideon found is to or from them, they may have failed at it though. Foxfire_ fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Aug 31, 2020 |
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Aug 31, 2020 20:27
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Khizan posted:I doubt this method would work that well. She'd have maybe a couple of seconds at best to both figure out how to destroy it and to actually implement the plan before the construct was on top of her with the boneswords, and if she fails at it then she's quite possibly dead. It works with a cavalier because they can survive the construct's assault long enough for the necromancer to work it out. Somebody less able's just gonna get mulched. I figure she'd still poke it with skeletons first and watch from outside the window, then once she knows what to expect, Harrow and 20 of her closest skellington friends can buy the five seconds she says she needs to unravel it. The necromancer pushing the button can still abort if things start going bad. I just think it's funny that faced with a problem that seems to want a necromancer in two places, Harrow jumps straight to "Meat Puppet!" instead of "This is supposed to teach Lyctors to work together for the good of the Empire"
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Sep 1, 2020 00:32
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I am 100% onboard with Frankensilaus theory. It also gives reasons for Dulcinea to be tired/fainting after landing (reanimating him after going through space) and Harrow to voluntarily go poke at him while they were walking to the life drain test (though that would mean Harrow is sending Gideon into the basement to look for him while being reasonably sure he's already ashes). Still suspicious of Dulcinea though. I could believe she had him jump into the incinerator himself to avoid being outed in the duel. (Also, on reread, when the 8th necro is magicing at Abigail's body, it's starting to do stuff, then Dulcinea yells and Protesilaus interrupts) For the locked room murder, my first guess is something invisible/spirity followed Gideon up from the basement and followed them in through the door. Dulcinea's wards around the life-drain test were supposed to detect invisible things, so we know they exist in the setting. If it needs to enter/leave via the door, it also couldn't kill both Gideon & Jeannemary or there'd be no one physical to unlock the door and get back out. (Also if we've got ghosts floating around, not counting Abigail as 100% out since she's supposed to specialize in spirits. Continue existing as a ghost is on-brand for Lyctoral immortality research and combos well with the posses a living person/regenerating construct theorems) e: Key Motion 2nd: - 2nd hatch key => 6th - No more keys 3rd: - 3rd hatch key: claimed to have, not seen 4th: - 4th hatch key: not issued 5th: - 5th hatch key => ??? 6th: - 6th hatch key - 2nd => 2nd hatch key - Golden theorem key: golden, elaborately carved shank, pockmarks instead of cuts in shaft 7th: - 7th hatch key => ??? (not on ring taken by 8th) - Grey theorem Key: thick grey, unpretentious teeth => 8th - 9th => Avulsion key => 8th 8th: - 8th hatch key - Black theorem Key: black, wrought iron curlicues - 7th => Avulsion key - 7th => Grey theorem key 9th: - 9th hatch key - Response key: chunky & solid, scarlet, ornate clover shaped holes on handle - Avulsion key: shining silvery white, austerely plain, single loop head, three simple teeth => 7th 3 keys unseen, Palamedes thinks he knows where all but one is (but is possibly double counting the Avulsion key) Coronabeth not being a necromancer (at least on her own) seems well supported: - She is uncertain about the remains in the incinerator, every other necromancer identifies them - She doesn't join in the poking of the remains afterwards - When she is trying to stop the duel - Ianthe: "what can you do?" Corona: "I can do nothing" - Early on, every necromancer (even Abigail and Judith) is off doing stuff. Corona is hanging out in the training room. Issac seems to have been subject to a purposeful spooking campaign. He says he's been seeing and hearing things ever since the 5ths murders Issac and Jeannemary report seeing Protesilaus go down the hatch while they are Steely Glint posted:What's up with the teeth? Teeth from many different corpses found in the incinerator and in the wounds on Magnus and Abigail. Harrow's hiding in a shell of teeth in Sanitation and Palamedes notes that she's really unbelievably good with teeth somehow. We also now have viewpoint confirmation that both Isaac and Jeannemary were killed with bones more generally (while Gideon conspicuously survives) -- is Harrow involved or is someone trying to frame her? Magnus and Abigail aren't teeth. They're tiny bits of bone from different sources and Palamedes is cut off before he can say what that implies. Harrow's pod isn't teeth either, it's one single piece of shaped bone that dissolves into chips and pebbles (which Palamedes finds fascinating for some reason). The one other place we have seen lots of teeth is in Dulcinea's ward outside avulsion, which was a spiral of teeth Foxfire_ fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Sep 2, 2020 |
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Sep 1, 2020 21:21
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If Frankensilaus, Dulcinea would be even more incapable of doing avulsion since she doesn't have a battery. As for motive, if she can see, control, and cast through him remotely, Dulcinea+a telepresence zombie where she can sit in the garden all day is more effective than her+a normal cav that she has to limp after, especially if her cav options were poor to begin with. Counterpoint is that if she wasn't being sneaky about it, she could have a telepresence zombie and a normal cavalier.
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Sep 2, 2020 18:03
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Anyone still reading/speculating or can we move forward?
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Sep 3, 2020 04:55
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Idaholy Roller posted:Heard a rumour there are prizes on offer if we guess right. You get strangers on the internet to acknowledge that you were right, which is truly the greatest prize of all. One last guess before I read the new stuff At some point, Naberius will duel Gideon-with-a-longsword. He will be snobby and smug about her choice of weapon, then he will get wrecked, and it will be funny.
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Sep 3, 2020 16:52
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Initial reactions: Dulcinea is still my primary suspect. Having Protesilius's head be in the closet makes it less likely his body was in the incinerator. There was at least one tooth burned up, so to be in the incinerator, it would need one of: - He was killed instead of suicided. The thing that killed him left some teeth embedded in the non-head parts of the corpse. i.e. a necro brought in teeth in their bonestash (from someone who died before they arrived), animated a construct from it, and left a tooth embedded in body - He is a frankenstein and suicided. He is built from parts from many bodies and includes teeth in the non-head portion. Dulcinea saves the head to plant somewhere. Head in closet: - If Harrow killed him, she would not save the head without some reason. Either ditch it wherever the body went or huck it out the window into the ocean that's right there - Harrow's closet had no wards. If she has never been warding it, day 1-2 Harrow was running an actual risk of a bored Gideon messing with her stuff. If someone was going to plant the head, they would expect to have to bypass the room wards, but wouldn't have been expecting a 2nd pettiness ward. Harrow would notice though, so a plant would need someone to find the head fast. Or the closet has just never been warded. Shuttlebomb: - This seems unlikely to be Harrow aiming at Gideon. Either of them actually killing the other seems out of character to me, plus it would need to be backup plan #5 (Crux threats -> Aglemane cajole -> Bribe with Cohort commission -> Duel). Planning for if she loses the duel doesn't seem Harrow-like. We also saw the shuttle land, so the only time it was available for 9th people to mess with is after Harrow already knows Gideon isn't going to be leaving on it - If Gideon's blackmail isn't child death ritual specifically, 'numbers' could be the 9th's general lack of people making it vulnerable to absorption by another house. Orteus and his mom could be bombed to prevent that from leaking. Bonelock: One of these: 1) Someone independently knew regenerating bone from before they arrived 2) Teacher is a researcher/Lyctor and did it 3) Someone with access to the red theorem room/Harrow's notes did it [Harrow counts] 4) Someone figured out enough from observing the regenerating construct to do it 5) Some other theorem is close enough to regenerating bone The room is from the key Dulcinea started with. My guess is that she jammed it after accessing it to try to make it worthless to the others, and that's why she doesn't really care about giving up the key. Unjamming it when neither of them has the grey key seems kind of dumb from Harrow & Palmedes since it's possibly giving the 8th a new room. Missing key: - If someone has it, my guess is Ianthe. Camilla overheard the 3rd saying they didn't have it, but Ianthe lying to Corona/Naberius isn't implausible. Coronabeth/Ianthe: - Gideon thinks Harrow means Corona is in charge. She doesn't actually say that, she says the big one. Need to go reread their stuff to see which one is the 'I' twin and which is the 'we' twin. Corona doesn't seem dominant in any of their interactions we've seen. Overall Murders: - Metawise, Harrow being responsible for the important-to-Gideon murders (Magnus, Abigail, Issac, Jeannemary) messes up the impact of having her and Gideon talking past each other in this set of chapters. She could still kill Protesilius, especially if he's a zombie or Dulcinea is the ultimate culprit. - As she dies, Dulcinea is supposed to be getting more and more necromantic power, so is a good candidate for high power magic murders The other candidates: * 2nd: they seem mostly out and we haven't seen them much, if they're the big culprits it's going to be based on future text * 3rd: Corona&Ianthe have some mysterious thing going on, so they have stuff to do in the story. Ianthe has been menacing and looming, so she's still a good option * 4th: Almost certainly actually out. They don't have any dangling plot or ghosty powers * 5th: Out with the caveat that Abigail has ghosty powers * 6th: Possible * 7th: Most suspcious * 8th: If Colum wouldn't go along with beating up Gideon for her keys, it doesn't seem like he'd be down with proactively murdering the 4th and 5th for no therem keys. Silas might, but it needs him to have expected that Colum wouldn't go along with it & do it secretly. He was surprised in this set of chapters, so this seems unlikely. * 9th: If Harrow is murdering people to win, it seems like she'd be going after theorem keys, not just knocking out low-probability hypothetical competition. Issac&Jeannemary didn't seem like they were any threat to beating her to the keys, and killing them makes Gideon less focused, not more Mecca-Benghazi posted:
Why wouldn't Teacher let the ship dock? If he's just animated meat, he's not different from Harrow's skeleton parade. She needs to argue for landing without having a real cavalier (either that the zombie counts or that she'll poach one of the others), but that's a handicap for her not an advantage so Teacher'd probably be fine with it. Foxfire_ fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Sep 5, 2020 |
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Sep 4, 2020 20:04
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I went back through looking for Coronabeth/Ianthe conversations. There are barely any; my impression is that usually Corona speaks for the group and Ianthe speaks for herself. So I could believe that Harrow's version of 'the big one' is Ianthe, but not conclusive. I did find a bit at the dinner party where Dulcinea is asking Abigail all about her research on Lyctoral history. Abigail is very excited to be in Canaan House and thinks she's found some communique's between ---. At which point Gideon decides the conversation is boring and stops listening  So some motive for going after Abigail specifically maybe?
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Sep 5, 2020 05:27
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Initial guesses I still want to go check/fill in things on Dulcinea killed the 4th and the 5th - She is still lying about Protesilus. Her explanation is okay for why there'd be one body predating their arrival. It's pretty crap for explaining two bodies with simultaneous death dates that predate their arrival. She was passed out from zombie feedback / 'slipped and fell' while everyone else investigated the incinerator and doesn't know they found the 2nd body. - The grey theorem room was the one she had access to. The corkboard is implying that the typical skeleton is powered by 3 souls, some are 5-6, the backup priests are dozens, and teacher is hundreds. She kills Magnus and Abigail, then binds their souls to power the big construct that kills Jeannemary and Issac. This is why none of the necromancers could call back any of the ghosts (presumably someone tried & failed with the 5th while Gideon was out). She doesn't kill Gideon because she like Gideon / needs a flesh-and-blood cavalier and she's her best shot at getting one. Naberius kills Protesilus. - Blade in the heart is something he's good at - Ianthe can't do it by herself since she has noodly necromancer arms and wouldn't be able to get the bodies up to burn them - No one in the sickroom meeting claims credit for the kill(s) or calls out Dulcinea about the 2nd body. Elimination: - The 2nd seem like general fuckups and would have announced it - The 6th would have either brought it up there or when talking to Harrow+Gideon afterwards - Dulcinea doesn't know about the 2nd incinerator body or she'd lie better So 8th or 3rd, and 3rd seems more likely quote:Judith: "Does anyone else want to take this opportunity to admit that they're already dead, or a flesh construct, or other relevant object? Anyone?" e: Bonus Thoughts The 7th house did not actually go all in on a mostly dead necromancer and an all-the-way dead cavalier. Dulcinea is not supposed to be here. She was supposed to be sidelined into a sickroom to die while the next-in-succession necro and their cavalier went. She gets on their shuttle, kills them both simultaneously, then animated Protesilus. The other body is his actual necromancer. Have to go see if the timing works out, but we've got an extra body that died at the same time as original recipe Protesilus, so either from the 7th somehow or someone's having coordinated cross-planet 'accidents'.  Why are Ortus & Glaurica on the mysterious list? Unless its Crux blowing them up on orders instead of just being petty, there doesn't seem to be anything there. Most of the cast don't even know they exist.Foxfire_ fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Sep 6, 2020 |
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Sep 6, 2020 20:18
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Final guesses: Dulcinea kills Abigail and Magnus as above. Less sure she killed Jeannemary and Issac. If not her, Ianthe. Dulcinea: (+) If she kills Abigail and Magnus and binds their souls for necrojuice, she can make the big bone monster (+) She plausibly spares Gideon (+) Harrow thinks the bone bits mean they were killed in the same was as the 4th (-) She's in a sickroom with Harrow and Palmedes guarding her, so she'd have to somehow do it remotely Ianthe: (+) The taunting messages sound a lot more like Ianthe than Dulcinea (+) Ianthe and Corona have lingering plot that has to do something (+) Better at bones than Palmedes since she recognizes the incinerator has two bodies (-) No theorems to give her any special necromancy for making big monsters, not triggering Issac's wards, or getting into locked rooms (-) No motive. Dulcinea at least could nab their souls for powering something I guess I will stick with Dulcinea and an ending flow of "Confront 3rd => Drama => Explanation of Corona/Ianthe and the stabbing of Prosilaus/other body => Confront 7th => Endgame" For the incinerator, the timing doesn't work out for Dulcinea to kill Pro + actual 7th necro on the shuttle unless they have a much longer flight. Ianthe says 3 months, Palmedes say she's 8 weeks wrong, so deaths are 1 month prior to that. I don't have anything better though, so Prosilaus + original 7th necro is my final guess. Crux kills Ortus, Glaurica, and a random shuttle pilot. Assorted WTFs: Gideon is some sort of preserved experiment (she is originally in a biotransport case). 'Gideon, Gideon, Gideon' is not intended to be a name for a baby and the women holding the case is not her mom. She does an unconscious thanergy -> health conversion. She was unkillable in a room full of dead children and recovers too fast from Avulsion (Caanan house is full of dead things). But she is beatupable and one of her escape attempts was foiled by poisioning in everyday 9th life. The trial was intended to be collaborative. Teacher is upset about the dueling and all the old researcher fragments we've seen are collegial. The trial was set up without explicit "Don't murder the other participants" rules, because what kind of crazy people need that to be explicitly stated? Teacher is unwilling to lie about what the Emperor said the rules were, even if it was an unstated assumption.
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Sep 7, 2020 08:47
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Read to the end after we make final guesses?
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Sep 7, 2020 20:51
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Finished. Complaints/dangling things below but I generally liked it - Unless I'm misremembering, no one ever actually takes credit for/has a motive for rekilling Prosilaus? - Having the locked room & bone monster be solved by outside necromancer seems a bit like cheating - Also having Teacher not identify Cytheria + go along with treating her as Dulcinea for inscrutable soul construct reason. Especially since her plan relies on it happening, but her explanation is "Dunno, he's weird". If Teacher flipped out when she came out of the shuttle, was she just going to wing it and kill everyone? - Why hide the key in Abigail's body? She doesn't need anything in the room and can apparently go through locked Lyctoral doors anyway. If she didn't want anyone getting in, just destroy it. - Why was Naberius upset that Corona was sparring with Gideon? I guess Corona is still possibly sequel relevant (assuming all of Gideon's birth/powers are sequel fodder) - Someone said at one point that all the trials needed a cavalier. Wasn't the one Palmedes described just "Go find the skeleton this tooth came from and ask nicely" and Camilla's only contribution to tell him to stop obsessing over the tooth's history like a nerd? Entropic posted:
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Sep 8, 2020 04:39
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Entropic posted:My interpretation of that was that Babs is in on the con of Corona not actually being a Necromancer and was worried about her giving it away. Maybe? I assume Babs is in on it, but doesn't really seem like anyone would worry about Gideon going "Aha! You are arms are insufficiently noodlly!" She and Gideon are also the ones that haul Colum up the hatch ladder after the 5th's deaths
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Sep 8, 2020 06:05
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Idaholy Roller posted:Is it not very good? I can’t see how it could be an improvement considering we’ve lost Gideon’s humour. It's got flashback Ortus's lyric poetry though!
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Sep 8, 2020 19:52
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I'm in.
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Sep 8, 2020 23:08
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Maybe thread title change so if anyone who already read Gideon & isn't watching it knows we're about to start a new book?
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Sep 11, 2020 03:23
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Smallbone Guessing Mr. Smallbone's head is in the deed box? Keeping track of the cast for this one is more confusing. So far, the real central mystery seems to be whether 'Abel Horniman' is intended to be a funny name or if it's just from being written in 1950.
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Sep 12, 2020 23:24
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More smallbone Obvious motive seems to be embezzlement. If I'm understanding the Horniman Office Management System (tm) correctly, they have all their currency & securities (this is in the age of paper stock certificates/bonds) pooled together in a common vault. Then each client has a deed box kept in the responsible soliciter's office with ledgers specifying what belongs to that client (I'm getting this from Bob saying that he needs to get into the trust deed box before he can audit the securities). It's a pretty terrible system. If the records in the trust deed box were altered/destroyed (and they probably are if there's a rotting head in there), there's no way to know if securities are missing from the main vault apart from one of the trustees remembering what's supposed to be there, and both trustees are conveniently dead. e: Also from that summary Rand Brittain posted, apparently we're getting a police investigator? Seemed like Henry was going to be the omnicompetent Holmes-esque detective Foxfire_ fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Sep 13, 2020 |
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Sep 13, 2020 23:49
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Safety Biscuits posted:This had better not be a spoiler for Gideon the Ninth (or Harrow), I haven't read them yet. You're still okay on the spoiler front though, the existence of that character isn't secret; it's more analogous to us knowing that Smallbone is going to have an 'Investigator Hazlerigg' in advance.
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Sep 14, 2020 05:53
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Mecca-Benghazi posted:I looked up photos of a lawyer deed box and I guess you might get a whole body in there with sufficient limb severing and some Tetris. It’s odd that no one smelled the body until it was opened, two months is long enough, but I admit to not knowing anything about how decaying flesh smells can permeate A mouse got in a box once, so Horniman Sr. had all the subsequent boxes made waterproof + airtight.
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Sep 18, 2020 03:15
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Don't have any good theories yet, still seems like initial setup & evidence. My one unsupported idea is that Smallbone is the one embezzling from the trust. It would give a good mid-book swerve and he's idle rich, but not that rich (and trying to give the impression of being wealthier than he actually is). Also, a one-handed person could totally still garrote someone, they just either need a loop on one end of the wire or to have one end already attached to their handless arm
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Sep 22, 2020 05:45
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Cove seems suspicious. Even if he dislikes his old officemate, sneaking into the office at nice, ransacking his desk, then breaking open the desk to rummage through the locked drawer while there's an active murder investigation going on seems more like he's looking for something in particular and that it's important, not just him trying to get Duxford in trouble with the senior partners. The police sergeant investigating the checks is also weird. The secretary who lives on the street (don't remember which one offhand) says the women they're to run the nursing home-esque place on the street, but the nurse who talked to the sergeant didn't recognize the name. The (presumably) second murder at the end of the section is leaning against anyone in the typing pool being involved. They would all have known that Miss Chittering was staying late. It supports embezzlement somewhere since there isn't anything in the office afterhours to snoop for except financial papers
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Sep 25, 2020 01:23
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Initial thoughts Did not realize Bob-Anne being a thing was supposed to be a mystery to the reader. Immediate reaction for a culprit is one of Craine, Cockerill, or Cornel. Craine has a financial motive and is open to taking Bohun's money to clean up the fraud mess. Cockerill seems to be loyal to Abel and wouldn't want the scandal. Cornel I have to go dig up motive for (context for when she was saying Abel was a great man that got referenced from Cockerill + stuff about the 'charity' disbursements that didn't make sense and have otherwise not done anything in the story). Want to go look at Cockerill+Chittering's pre-death narration to see if it works with Cockerill not knowing she was there, killing her, then going to the pub to make an alibi and story about her working late. For being certain that the murders were carried out by a leftie, no one investigating seems to be paying any attention to who is actually left handed. Maybe scene where someone sees a picture of a certain left-handed golfer? e: In her last scene, Chittering is relieved to see her murderer. That fits with Cockerill or Cornel more than Craine. She's already wound up and seeing one of the partners who isn't supposed to be there trying to get into the typists room after hours probably wouldn't make her relax and be casual. Really anyone is a mess for this since as described, Cockerill would know she was there beforehand and Cornel would either know she was there or not know the building was unlocked. e2 after reading Hobnob: I wasn't thinking planned murder for Chittering, but that makes more sense. Otherwise the murderer is bringing a garrote with them on a trip intended for disposing of papers/embezzling/some other paper crime Foxfire_ fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Sep 30, 2020 |
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Sep 30, 2020 08:21
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Miss Cornel is not good at crimes. Put body in the Smallbone box, put the Smallbone papers in the next most unlikely to be opened box, done.
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Oct 3, 2020 04:15
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The Shortest Way to Hades say's its the second of a trilogy on Amazon. Is the first one important/spoiled for anything or is it just disconnected same-detective?
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Oct 5, 2020 02:20
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Notes from chapter 1 Someone knows Elliot Sr's abandoned plans for the Spider => One of (1) he is the culprit, (2) he told someone [editor, ...], (3) he wrote it down somewhere [butler, maid, ...]
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Oct 17, 2020 18:25
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This is a much chewier book than the previous two. - Seems like anyone who's regularly in the house unattended had access to the previous drafts. They'd need to be a Spider-fan to have been reading before deciding on the crime, but that doesn't really rule anyone out. - Painting the graffiti in the rain, while hanging off the ledge, in a rush so not to be spotted doesn't seem that plausible. My guess for now is that it was painted in red earlier, then painted/covered over, with both paints washing off in the rain. (This doesn't really jive with there apparently being a mystery clarinet just before it's discovery) - Re: the meta play one of the partygoers discussed: Is this a mystery book about a mystery writer writing a mystery book about a mystery writer and we're going to shift perspectives ? Everyone's dialog is very theatrical- Patricia and Belinda's search for red paint on their way out to the window was pretty sloppy if they didn't notice Toplady asleep. Or he wasn't there when they went out the window. - No idea what's up with Bussenschutt yet
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Oct 27, 2020 06:38
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The way the prose is written in this makes it hard to reread for clues. For the hide-and-seek painting theft, a 3rd party coming in while everyone is hiding and the seeker is drugged makes the most practical sense, but seems like cheating for a mystery novel. The most fair way for that I would think is if it was one of the house staff, but none of them have names. So then we either have a pair that are both in on it, a pair that split up, or Archie drugged himself after doing the theft. I guess Bussenschutt is also a named character who isn't paired up and could potentially have entered the house after an accomplice drugs Archie. With the red paint also being watercolor and washing off, I'm going with it being set up in advance and painted over with another water soluble paint. Red shaving brush notwithstanding, that seems more possible to do than someone dangling off a wet balcony trying to paint watercolor on an already wet wall, while hoping that no one happens to walk by and glance upward.
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Nov 8, 2020 23:18
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I finally finished slogging through the book, so necro-ing this for thoughts. It's pretty bad as a mystery None of the crimes are solved or even really discussed in terms of mechanism. It sort of seems like it's trying to be motive/psychology focused, but people also don't have sensible behavior. Going through each of the crimes: Burglary at Birdwire's Winter uses his skills as a middle-aged Oxford classics professor to find a time when the house is empty, drug the pack of dogs, break into the house, steal stuff, then dump the stolen items off, all without leaving any evidence behind. That summary is about as much description of the how as is in the actual book. His motive is to try to find some blackmail that he infers she has based on a previously-unmentioned conversation they had years before the story, so that he get one of his colleagues to stop inexplicably doing nothing with an archeological find. Things at Rust Rupert did everything. There will be no discussion of how he painted the graffiti on the house while standing on a tiny ledge, in the rainstorm, in a small time window while no one was looking, despite spending an entire earlier chapter focusing on how that would be difficult. I guess he was just lucky. The clarinet is Rupert playing a clarinet and then running away or something before anyone follows the sound. For the painting theft, his alibi of having been constantly accompanied by Cavey was accomplished by convincing the senile old lady living in the attic to seamlessly swap places with him, with it being dark enough for Cavey to not notice the difference or recognize that it's not his voice replying to her (also hoping that she never turns on her flashlight), then swapping back after the theft His motive for all of this is as follows: 1. As adults are fundamentally incapable of creating new fictional ideas (all the psychologist/academic characters nod approvingly), all of Eliot's novels are subconsciously repackaging ideas he and Rupert had when they were 10. This is how Rupert knows unpublished plot details 2. One of these ideas is a murder committed by injecting a camel with a slow acting poison so it dies and strands the rider in the desert 3. Decades ago, Rupert tried to use that idea to murder Shoon (for some unspecified reason), but Shoon survived 4. If Elliot publishes Death in the Desert and Shoon reads it, Shoon will obviously think: "Aha! that time 20 years ago when my camel died was surely a murder attempt! I must get revenge on all the vaguely remembered acquaintances who were around at the time." 5. Therefore, Rupert must use all means available to prevent the book from being published, or failing that, to preemptively try to kill Shoon again 6. Scooby Doo hijinks are the best way to accomplish this Pigs at Shoon Abbey Rupert's plan to get Elliot to stop writing has failed, but he's already got a perfectly good elaborately-timed-distraction-and-theatrical-pig-killing plan, and it would be a shame to let that go to waste Other Shoon Abbey Things After having realized that Rupert is the prankster, Eliot has decided an appropriate response is: 1. Send threatening notes 2. Infiltrate their ruthless arms dealer host's private arsenal and steal explosives 3. Blow up the coat closet 4. Sneak into the Shoon's locked up antiquities collection, plant another bomb, lure Rupert into also going into the collection (but hopefully standing somewhere where he will be protected from shrapnel), explode bomb, thereby scaring Rupert away 5. Oops, explosion collapsed the building Rupert's fallback Shoon Abbey Plan (aka. the one good one) Hide outside in the dark, then shoot Shoon with a gun, thereby killing him
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Apr 12, 2021 00:34
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