💧 Week 3 | 水車館の殺人 🩸 | Mystery Book Club

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Welcome to the reading club for 水車館の殺人!

水車館の殺人

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Reading Schedule

Week Chapter(s) (MT) Page Range (MT) Total # Pages (cat) Total # Pages
Week 3 第五章 - 第七章 91-148 58 45

Discussion Guidelines

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About a sentence in chapter five

Maybe I’m just looking too hard for confirmation of my pet theory that present day 紀一 is an unreliable narrator, but when 潔 asks

藤沼さん、あなたにしたって、あの事件の未解決の部分には興味がおありでしょう

the narrator text is

未解決の部分に対する興味。ーそれはもちろん、あると云わざるをえない。

which doesn’t actually say that he is interested, merely that he has to answer ‘yes’…which of course is also what you’d be obliged to say if, for instance, you were the murderer and would much rather leave this all brushed under the carpet…

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3

島田 has a point. It is likely that the deaths are connected. If his theory is right and the murderer was in the room at the time 文江 fell, that clears half the cast on the surface, but that sounds too simple. That’s why I’m actually more suspicious of the people with an “alibi”. My theory is that while the incidents are related, the two of them weren’t killed by the same person. In the case of 文江 I think that the culprit was 正木. It might not have been premeditated. Maybe there is some secret to that room and while 正木 was investigating that 文江 stumbled upon him so he killed her to keep her silent.
For the murder of 正木, maybe it was 紀一 or 由里絵? Or even both. 紀一 at least feels like he is hiding something. Maybe he’s the culprit, maybe he just knows something we’re not supposed to know yet. And 由里絵 sounds entirely too innocent to me to not be suspicious.

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4

Everyone here is suspicious :joy: 大石 gets too angry too easily, 三田村 keeps nervously fidgeting, and 森 is being grumpy and silent and weird when asked questions. Therefore I also think it’s 由里絵 who has so far basically avoided saying anything. I like the idea that 正木 killed 文江, but I want to think he killed her for 由里絵, and then 由里絵 killed him (or had 紀一 kill him for her) to cover the tracks? The relationship between 由里絵 and 紀一 is still puzzling, and him covering for her could make sense.

I also think this super mysterious last work is going to come into play somehow, but how I have no idea yet :thinking:

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5

Still trudging along on this one; on chapter 7, maybe a third of the way through. For whatever reason this book just never ends up on top of my priority list. Honestly it feels pretty slow so far; I’m almost seven chapters in, just under halfway through in terms of chapter count, in and not much has honestly happened. Anyone else feel that way so far? Do Big Events :tm: start happening soon?

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