2002. No stone unturned

Fleur had been murdered on her maid’s day off. She had been stabbed four times in the chest. Ironically, she wrote and published murder mysteries. Perhaps a key to her murderer’s identity lay in Fleur’s unfinished manuscript. In the unfinished novel the murdered victim was named Pamela. The description of her bore a remarkable resemblance to Fleur. Perhaps it was a cry for help. The manuscript must be examined minutely, for as the detective said, “We shall leave no stone unturned”.

The first suspect was Olwyn, the teenage student who came to mow Pamela’s lawn every Wednesday after school. It can’t have been her because she was currently away at a school camp.

There was the handsome soldier who “passed by”. His name was unknown, but Pamela referred to him as “My handsome soldier man”. It can’t have been him because he’d been gone a good week when the murder was done.

Perhaps it was Floyd the postman. He delivered mail three times a week: Monday’s, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Except, the postal workers were on strike at the time of Fleur’s murder.

Finally, could it have been Elric, the president of the local Amateur Society’s Glee Club? Not a chance! The Glee Club was away in the big city preparing for their Christmas pantomime production.

What stood out as to why one of these possible assassins of Pamela might also be the murderer of Fleur, was that Fleur, just like her protagonist, had a lawn-mowing teen come every Wednesday. She had a handsome soldier pass by. She had a thrice-a-week-delivering postman. She was super-friendly with the president of the local Amateur Society’s Glee Club. Was this a case of fiction imitating life?

Fleur had been brutally stabbed in the chest four times, as has been pointed out. This caused untold confusion, because Fleur had been stabbed four times in the abdomen, but her body was found in a chest in the attic. So what exactly was meant when the novel said she had been stabbed four times in the chest?

And then Fleur’s notes for her novel were discovered in the chest itself. It pointed to the murderer being Lillian. Not only had Lillian not made an appearance thus far in the manuscript, but there was no indication of who she was or what she did. Obviously Lillian was the one who had done the murder, but her identity was anyone’s guess.

Clearly the unfinished manuscript of Fleur’s murder mystery was of no help whatsoever. Much to the relief of Gillian, the maid.

1301. Don’t judge a book by its cover

Today’s story marks a departure in all directions at once. It is a book review; which is something never attempted by this blogger before. Secondly, the reviewer has still to read the book – but that’s not unusual. And finally, the book hasn’t been written yet.

It doesn’t have a title as such but I thoroughly recommend it. Here is a good reason not to judge a book by its cover. This epic trilogy is basically a whodunit. It is full of interesting suspects.

Philomena Gettysburg gets herself murdered. A whole string of people possibly done it. There’s the butler, Ned, who has cerebral palsy, but that wouldn’t stop him from shaking a fist at Philomena. There’s Myrtle the village transsexual, who has every reason to dislike the philandering Philomena. There’s Mervyn, the loner, who threatened not only to burn down the local church, but declared his abhorrence of everyone, including Philomena, who attended. Dyslexic Murray doesn’t know his right hand from his left, but Philomena possibly could’ve been stabbed by a knife in either. The list goes on.

If you don’t want a spoiler, stop reading. Who done it then? Here lies the author’s originality. After three volumes of spell-binding insinuations, the murderer is revealed. It was no one in the book. Isn’t that exciting? Who would have thought it? It was almost impossible to guess.

This then is an ideal book to take to the beach if you don’t want sand in your swimming trunks.