Week 6 of 十角館の殺人🕵️‍♀️ Mystery Novel Book Club 👮‍♂️

Japanese Reading Book Clubs
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Hello and welcome! We have entered the sixth week of the book club!

As a reminder, we are following the below schedule (page counts are estimates based on standard size iPad with default font):
Week 1 + 2 : プロローグ + 第一章 (47 pages)
Week 3: 第二章 (31 pages)
Week4: 第三章 (24 pages)
Week 5: 第四章 (22 pages)
Week 6: 第五章 (39 pages)

As it is week 6 we will vote on which of the two cadences we’d like to finish out with!

Speed up, the end is near:
Week 7: 第六章 + 第七章 + 第八章 (43 pages)
Week 8: 第九章 (55 pages)
Week 9: 第十章 + 第十一章 + 第十二章 + エピローグ (52 pages)
or
Steady, generally just one chapter a week unless very short
Week 7: 第六章 + 第七章 (26 pages)
Week 8: 第八章 (17 pages)
Week 9: 第九章 (55 pages)
Week 10: 第十章 + 第十一章 (19 pages)
Week 11: 第十二章 + エピローグ (33 pages)

  • Speed up, I want to know!
  • Nice and steady
  • I want to click a poll, but I am not reading this book

0 voters

This poll will close and results will be officially announced when the week 7 thread opens.

I will generally copy this information over thread to thread each week for ease of finding - you can always expect the schedule at the top of any weekly thread :slight_smile:

:policeman: Law and Order :policewoman:

  • Any reveals, for the current chapters must be behind spoilers or detail curtains. When we get further in you don’t need to hide details that were revealed in previous chapters.
  • Questions on vocab, grammar, nuance, and the like are both welcome and encouraged. If you’re not sure if it’s a spoiler, assume it is and use one of the above options to hide the text.
  • You are encouraged to speculate and guess wildly
  • Be kind about other peoples’ wild guesses :sparkling_heart:
  • Even if you don’t read the chapter(s) in time, you are still encouraged to post in the thread for that reading once you have finished it. I advise not reading ahead in the threads as you may see spoilers.

To gauge participation - a poll!

Are you reading week 6?

  • Yes, I’m planning to read along/am reading along this week
  • I have finished this week’s reading
  • I’m reading, but not at the same pace as the club (am behind or ahead)
  • I’ve stopped reading
  • I wanted to join, but I haven’t started reading the book yet
  • I had no intentions of reading the book, but I desire to click a poll

0 voters

Happy sleuthing! :male_detective:

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So this was a super action-packed chapter. :eyes: I guess some of us got our wish for things to kick into high gear, haha. Finished reading the chapter this weekend; I typically like to do my book club reading on the weekend, and reading at the start of a book club week is preferable to me rather than reading at the end. So I’m technically reading ahead, but only by a day or so? If I even finish over the weekend.

Anyway, good stuff, good stuff; looking forward to hearing other’s thoughts.

Spoilers!

Spoilers for chapter 5.1!

For those who were interested in the reading a representative book by the authors the kids were named after as the kids died, it looks like now is a good time to start. I was thinking I could post about books the authors have written over in the main home thread (sans spoilers, of course) so they aren’t scattered among the week threads. Could make it too obvious what order people die in, though, so maybe we should talk about it at the end of a reading week? Of course, people can read supplementary stuff at their own pace, but I thought it’d be nice to a have an intro post for each author as we went along; these guys are all pretty prolific.

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Just finished chapter 5 part 4 of this weeks reading!

Big spoilers I can’t say that I shed a tear for Carr, he was such a butt of a character. Orczy though I quite liked :disappointed_relieved: Also, in other news, I was completely lost with all of the conversation in part 4 about riddles and ciphers. Hoping that it’s not important later as I kind of just gave up on understanding that bit :man_shrugging:

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I bet the riddles are not important.

上を見れば下にあり、下にあれば上にあり、母の腹を通って子の肩にあり

This reminded me of a riddle my 6 year old son asked me the yesterday. ひゃくひくいちは何ですか？
Anyone knows the answer?

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白？

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Just finished this part too. Big Spoilers: I agree on Carr, although he did have a point when he wanted to see the body himself. For all we know, Poe can by lying about all sorts of details, or even be in cahoots with Orczy and be hiding the fact that she’s not even dead. Everything is possible I guess.

More big spoilers and speculation: So アガサ prepared the coffee herself. She brought everything on a tray, and asked them to help themselves to sugar and milk, so all coffees were (supposed to be) the same. アガサ took the second to last cup, handing the last one to ヴァン. エラリイ was the first one to pick a cup, but he took the one closest to him. (Of course there’s also his sleight of hand to consider). Do we even know how they all take their coffee? Maybe カー is the only one who takes sugar or milk. Or maybe the sugar comes in cubes (do we know?) and only one was poisoned. Or the poison was in the cigarettes?

And some more spoilers: I had the same theory as Ellery: that someone, presumably Seiji, is hiding on the island. He was a genius architect after all, and had constructed all sorts of hiding places in his buildings, hadn’t he? But Ellery mentioning it so soon makes me doubt it a little. It seems like the author knows exactly where he’s leading the reader and has been chuckling to himself the whole time.

In non-spoilery territory now, I happen to have the first volume of the manga from when it was free on Bookwalker, and I looked through it to see how the island was depicted. The first volume ends on the previous chapter, with a glimpse of the first big event of the beginning of this one. Spoiler now (for the beginning of this chapter and possibly affecting speculation): : オルツィ is depicted exactly as ポウ described her, so if it’s not a trick of some kind from the mangaka, ポウ isn’t hiding something, as I was suspecting. Anyway, what surprised me was that, back on the mainland, a girl is shown receiving a letter addressed to 江南. I don’t remember how I reached this conclusion and what clues there were, if any, but I was confident that 江南 is a boy. Have I missed something? And if I have missed something so basic, how can I even pretend to be able to try and solve the mystery itself? The given name seems to be different, though. It’s あきら in the manga, instead of 孝明.

I loved those! They were very hard to follow, admittedly, especially the literary references, but I loved this glimpse in how, once again, kanji can add a whole other dimension in puns, codes and word games. (I’m hoping that’s not really a spoiler, right?)

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当たり!

The celebration of 99 years old is 白寿, using 白 as 99.
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I believe they said he takes his coffee black, correct?

I’d need to go back and flip through, but surely 彼’s been used when talking to 江南, right? No way everyone could have gotten through 2-3 chapters with 江南 as the protagonist and not noticed. Maybe the girl is a neighbor/girlfriend/etc?

I’m not sure I understand. :thinking: Could you explain a little further?

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I remember エラリイ’s coffee was specifically mentioned to be black. Was there a reference to カー’s coffee too? (it’s possible it’s in the part I haven’t read yet.) The liquid spilled when the table started shaking was 琥珀色, but I’m not sure whether that was specifically カー’s coffee or all of them. I’d expect milk coffee to be such a color though.

Glad it’s not only me. If everyone agrees 江南 is a boy, then he must be a boy. It’s possible they changed him to a girl in the manga so as to have better diversity or covers or something? They changed the name too, after all. And no, the girl is definitely 江南 in the manga. I didn’t read it, but looking at the panels, she’s in all the scenes 江南 is supposed to be.

My reasoning for my answer: ひゃくひくいち = 百 - 一 = 白 (remove 一 from the 百 kanji and you get 白)

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I was just talking about a riddle The reasoning on that riddle is actually used on a real expression. It is not related to the novel, that’s what I wrote on the second post.

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Ahhh I finally had time to read! Read it all at once, this was a fun and fast chapter!

Hahaha exactly the same feelings here.

I was thinking this the entire chapter. His actions struck me as incredibly sus.

Yep, here’s the line:

ミルクは君も使ったじゃないか。砂糖も駄目だ。カーは僕と同じで、コーヒーには何も入れないからね。当然スプーンも使わなかった

Hahaha we’re thinking along exactly the same lines.

Definitely indicted as a dude - somehow it feels like 江南 going on a solo adventure with an older guy they just met would be a bit odder if they were a woman? Is that addressed at all in the manga? I don’t get the feeling gender norms have changed that much given the warnings I get from female friends to be careful of the impression I’m giving Japanese dudes. :sweat_smile:

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Just finished the chapter!

Right, that will teach me to be impatient and comment before finishing. It stood to reason that such details would be addressed. :sweat_smile:

My thoughts exactly. I skimmed the relevant parts, and no, it doesn’t seem so. She’s just open and chatty and trusting with that weird stranger she just met in another stranger’s house under very strange circumstances. She is not depicted falling asleep in his car, at least. Nor getting drunk together.
Some other details seem to have been updated for the manga: They have cellphones and LINE (presumably no signal on the island), and 千織 (spoilering because there’s a difference that may affect speculation) died in an accident at sea while on a cruise with the club, rather than of alcohol poisoning at a party.

Anyone interested can read the first volume of the manga for free until the 22nd, by the way.

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I admit one of the things that I think draws me so much to older mysteries is the lack of modern tech. No phones, no internet, no DNA testing, etc. I still enjoy a modern mystery, but there’s something special to me about people isolated from all those tools and yet figuring out a mystery anyways.

Tempting. I can read manga far faster than books and it seems the manga is different anyways…

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Bear in mind it’s only the first volume that’s free (and for a limited time), and it reaches only up to the end of the previous chapter. There are a few noteable differences, like genders and such, but the main plot seems to follow the book exactly.

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So I finished reading the first volume of the manga and I have a few thoughts:

  1. I’m going to be so annoyed if the person they’ve been heavily foreshadowing as the culprit is actually the culprit.
  2. Was not expecting オルツィ to be such a bombshell :eyes:
  3. My comment on コナン hanging out with an older dude she just met being weird was addressed in a 4-koma at the end of the volume:
Hidden for size

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I didn’t notice any obvious foreshadowing, but then I didn’t actually read it. I’m now thinking maybe I should :thinking:

My thoughts exactly :sweat_smile: Her proportions may be a little unrealistic, I thought.

Ah, good to know that it was addressed in some way!

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It’s actually all in how they’re drawing that person and the amount of focus they’re giving them relative to to other characters. They seem to be setting them up as a villian.

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finished this week’s chapter just now… anyone else find it weird how calm everyone is? Someone died, the murderer must be in the group… let’s do a magic trick… :upside_down_face: I would have expected more freaking out… :woman_shrugging:t2: I would not be able to sleep alone… or at all… :face_in_clouds:

On a side note: I read “The Scarlet Pimpernel” which was surprisingly fun. Now just need to decide on a book from Carr

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Honestly I don’t know what I would have preferred. Sleeping alone or sleeping next to a murderer as long as other people are there too. Not sleeping is not an long-term option. How long can you stay up before you’re so exhausted you don’t even care what happens to you?

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They could have set up some kind of sleep rotation… 1 person sleeps for 4 (or so) hours, while the rest stays awake… you can stay up for 48h without much problem if the adrenaline is running high enough… and eventually the boat will come to take them home… I would be so scared that for sure I would not sleep until my body forces me to… :see_no_evil:

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