Oh, that 絵でわかる日本語 is really nice! 
Thanks for the link!
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Read up to 4, so spoilers for part 3~~
I looove the fact that 島田 calls 河南 コナン, and he just accepts it without comment. They’re such geeks! I really like 島田’s enthusiasm - I hope that doesn’t mean he’s our instigator, though. That’s always a concern in this kind of book, haha.
I feel like this sort of outside investigation happening alongside the case really adds to the suspense! I was expecting more immediate action like in And Then There Were None, but I do not mind this one bit. I like suspense! And investigations!
Aww man. Halfway through the chapter, I believe? Looking forward to finishing off the rest, probably today!
I agree that the language remains very readable. There’s a bunch of new words I don’t feel the need to learn though, like all those Buddhist terms in part 3 or stuff like 揚子江. I do always appreciate learning about words like 風見鶏, though. They’re so charming, somehow. 
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Done with chapter 2… nothing really to say… more people. I should probably also start making a list… 
or maybe not… wiki has a list of characters… 
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I’ve been making a list as I go along with name readings and notes. I could update the home post later with these things, although I’ll leave out any spoilers and speculation.
ex:
ルルウー男性、小柄、文学部、二回生
カーー男性、法学部、三回生、浪人
中村青司ーなかむら せいじ
It will likely be later this evening though at the earliest. Although @brandon is it possible to turn a post into a wiki? I think it’d be neat to make the home thread have an editable character list so people can add readings and non-spoiler notes
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I think you can make it a wiki @cat since you’re a regular. Just use the wrench icon, it should list ‘make wiki’ as an option 
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Learn something new every day! I didn’t even know I had a wrench icon as it’s hidden in the expanded menu 
In any case, the top post of the home post is now a wiki - I added in my notes thus far, please take care to put any spoilers behind spoiler tags.
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This is very nice, thank you! I added 江南孝明’s nickname (ドイル) to the wiki under spoiler.
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Finished this week’s chapter! I really like the unexpected introduction of more characters who are investigating from the mainland. I wonder if that means that no one on the island will survive? Or maybe they will, and the investigations will converge and complement each other. .
So let me get the chronology straight: The murders on the island happened on September last year. The daughter died on January after that. It is now March, roughly a year later. Is that all correct? Or did the daughter die before the parents?
So the daughter never lived on the island? Her parents were brutally murdered, and she joins the mystery club at university, then drinks herself to death at an after-after party?
By the way, none of the theories presented so far in the book make much sense to me. There’s clearly a lot we don’t know yet. And I’m not even satisfied the bodies were all identified correctly. They were surely torally disfigured, and we weren’t told about dental records or anything conclusive like that.
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I’ve also finished this weeks chapter! I’m really enjoying it but I don’t have too much more to say so far. Other than for some reason I’m a bit suspicious of 島田…seems a bit weird that he’s suddenly so in on the investigation, and him being 江次郎’s alibi also seems like something that could come up later
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Agreed. It’s very weird that on the very first inquiry about the letter, 江南 just happens upon someone who knows a lot about the case, is interested in mysteries and has ample time to investigate with some student who he just met. An(other) suspicious coincidence, to be sure.
In my mind, this makes the brother suspicious. If I recall correctly, he was the one who called 島田 out of the blue for drinks on that particular day.
As a side note, I’m hoping all those scattered mentions of Buddhism won’t turn out to be significant, or I might end up hopelessly lost trying to piece together clues related to that…
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Finally done! Wasn’t feeling too great the past couple of days but I’m back to normal I hope and finished out the chapter.
Big same. I suspect the gardener is not the one who “went missing” but rather 青司
Pet theory: 島田 is 青司 
@omk3 I think 千織 died first, in January. Exact date I don’t have written down. Then the island stuff happened in September.
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That’s what I thought at first, then something made me change my mind (wasn’t the maternal side of her family entrusted with her education, I assume after her parents’ death? - probably need to reread some parts), then I was unsure again .
Fun! That would have to involve either plastic surgery or the brother being in on it (entirely possible).
But yeah, my theory is that either 青司 is alive and well, or that his own death was designed by himself in such a way as to trigger certain events.
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Gah I don’t remember that at all. This is what I get for reading half the chapter half awake 
Yeah my lean is towards the brother being in on it. His actions after his brother’s death, 島田 being at his house coincidentally when 江南 shows up, 島田’s general weird behavior, 島田 also seeming to have an unusually strong reaction to alcohol, etc all make me think that relationship is not what it seems
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Loving all the speculation - I’m still in the soak up information phase and have nothing but vague feelings. Agree the brother seems suspicious! As does 島田. They might just be mystery freaks themselves - or they might be sussing out 江南 degree of (non) involvement in the 千織’s death.
How does that make him more or less suspicious? People react more or less strongly to alcohol on an individual basis, so I didn’t really think much of it to be honest.
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I’m basing this on these two passages:
千織は市内にある母方の祖父の家に住んでおり、葬儀もそこで執り行なわれた。だが、あの時の喪主の名は「青司」ではなかったように思う。
紅さんに姪がいるってことは知ってたし、学校へ行く都合で和枝夫人の実家に預けられていたことも聞いている。
But I may be misunderstanding, and she just lived with the grandparents in order to be able to go to school.
If she was alive at the time of her parents’ death she would have inherited the island, not the brother. So she was probably killed before. Yet apparently the father wasn’t at her funeral. I’m still very confused by the timeline, and by the fact that no one has yet talked about either party’s reaction to the other’s death, whichever came first.
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So, I will preface this by saying it is a wild leap of logic (my favorite kind): Because 千織 also had an, err, ‘issue’ with alcohol, I was like “hmm…genetic component?”
So I went poking around. 千織’s death is stated to be 昨年の一月の出来事だった by 江南 and earlier, when カー is being a moany brat complaining to ポウ he says this about the 中村清司 case:
去年あんな事件があったからって、別にいま面白いことがあるわけじゃない。
But I agree the lack of reactions is interesting.
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I thought we had two weeks to read chapter 2… I’ll have to catch up once I finish reading the other book I’m reading.
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Oh no, sorry if there was any confusion! The schedule up til week 6 is at the top of the weekly threads and then there will be a vote for the pacing of the final weeks. The Prologue + Chapter 1 were two weeks due to length and @omk3 rightly calling out that the hardest part of books is usually the opening / scene setting.
Thankfully these next two weeks are lower page counts. Looking forward to hearing your speculation! 
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Ack, I’m behind a week. >.< Got caught up with other books last week, so I’m aiming to catch up this week.
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Nope! Completely my fault not reading things properly. I’ll start joining in on the discussions again once I’ve caught up!
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