[WiZ] The Murderous Mystery of the Mysterious Murder

[WiZ]

A local book club, whose members are intelligent, well-read, and fans of the murder mystery genre, are each presented with a[n identical] copy of a new murder mystery book. Each member takes the book home and reads it, and they all meet up at the end of the month to discuss whodunnit.

Remarkably, each member not only has a completely different idea of who the culprit is, but wildly differing interpretations of the plot. How come?

BOATS. Caveat Earlispoilor.

[gregoryuconn]

Did they all finish the book? Read to exactly the same point in the book? Is this one of those books where you have a new plot twist every chapter that reveals a new likely suspect and changes the interpretation of things? And then maybe they all read to different points?

[klondike mary]

Does the book have multiple authors? Is the author(s) relevant?
Are translations relevant?

[trebor]

Does the book also relevantly fit into any other genre? Is the plot of the book relevant? Does it matter who the author intended the murderer to be?

[AlbatrossLover]

Is the book nonfiction/based on real events? Do some members have (or lack) certain previous knowledge/biases that affects how they see the book? Is the book interactive in some way (i.e a choose your own adventure book)?

[LemonCurry]

Was it a printed book, i.e. pages on paper?
Has everybody read every single page of the book?
Does the book contain any invading Manticores?

[Earnest]

Is the objective of the book to discover the culprit? Is the objective of the readers?

Remarkably, each member not only has a completely different idea of who the culprit is --> can we assume that they all guess different characters of the book? Themselves? Can we assume that the book its a standard murder book? Can we assume that there is only one victim and k suspected where k is the number of people in the book club? Relevant how many people is there in the club? 10? More than 10?

copy of a new murder mystery book --> can we assume that is a completely new book (i.e. not a reprint/reproduction...)? Can we assume that the culprit is either HAM? HAF? HCM? HCF? or it can be seen metaphorically as "a whole nation"? or "people" in general?

WAG: Is it the reprint of Bible? ...I mean...it can be seen as a crime book in some of its part; depending on the religion people have different interpretation about its plot and again depending on the religion someone think that Pilate its guilty of the assassination of Christ, someone else blame Hebrew people, someone else all human being, someone else Judah and so on...


Can we assume that the dental copies all have no typos?

[Balin]

Are they reading the rearrangeable "Cain's Jawbone"?

[WiZ]

GregoryUconn

Did they all finish the book? yes Read to exactly the same point in the book? yes Is this one of those books where you have a new plot twist every chapter that reveals a new likely suspect and changes the interpretation of things? not necessarily/relevantly And then maybe they all read to different points? no

Klondike Mary

Does the book have multiple authors? no Is the author(s) relevant? It is a specific book by a specific author, but the catch here is not synonymous with the author's style
Are translations relevant? no

Trebor

Does the book also relevantly fit into any other genre? no Is the plot of the book relevant? I will say no to 'plot' Does it matter who the author intended the murderer to be? no

AlbatrossLover

Is the book nonfiction/based on real events? no Do some members have (or lack) certain previous knowledge/biases that affects how they see the book? no Is the book interactive in some way yes! (i.e a choose your own adventure book)? but not like this

LemonCurry

Was it a printed book, i.e. pages on paper? yes
Has everybody read every single page of the book? yes
Does the book contain any invading Manticores? no, and frankly the book is the poorer for it. In the absence of such a striking motif, they had to settle for a TAMER ICON

Earnest

Is the objective of the book to discover the culprit? Is the objective of the readers? yes to both - although it is not the sole objective...

Remarkably, each member not only has a completely different idea of who the culprit is --> can we assume that they all guess different characters of the book? yes Themselves? no Can we assume that the book its a standard murder book? In terms of genre, yes. In terms of plot, yesish Can we assume that there is only one victim and k suspected where k is the number of people in the book club? sure Relevant how many people is there in the club? No, although you do quickly reach a critical mass with the number of possible culprits and the number of members to guess them 10? More than 10?

copy of a new murder mystery book --> can we assume that is a completely new book (i.e. not a reprint/reproduction...)? yes Can we assume that the culprit is either HAM? HAF? HCM? HCF? Assume they are a human adult, and this isn't terribly relevant or it can be seen metaphorically as "a whole nation"? or "people" in general? no

WAG: Is it the reprint of Bible? no (IIRC all those murders are solved - Abel's being a particularly open-and-shut case) ...I mean...it can be seen as a crime book in some of its part; depending on the religion people have different interpretation about its plot and again depending on the religion someone think that Pilate its guilty of the assassination of Christ, someone else blame Hebrew people, someone else all human being, someone else Judah and so on... Ah, I see. No, this rather delicate and controversial issue is not key to the solution here.

Can we assume that the dental copies all have no typos? You can bet your eye teeth that there are no typos.

Balin

Are they reading the rearrangeable "Cain's Jawbone"? Yes they are, you damnable rogue.

***** SPOILER *****

They are reading the novel Cain's Jawbone, which consists of a 100-page prose narrative with its pages arranged in the wrong order. To solve the puzzle, the reader must determine the correct order of the pages and also the names of the murderers and victims within the story. The pages can be arranged in a very large number of orders, but there is only one correct order. The solution to the puzzle has never been made public.

Congratulations to Balin (and also to Enjay, who took the caveat a little more to heart) on the solution, and thank you everyone for playing.

[AlbatrossLover]

Even basic locked rooms make my head hurt sometimes but I really want to get my hands on that book now...

[Balin]

...sorry for the earlispolor. Read about the recent solve on the cryptic crosswords subreddit and thought it worth a guess.

[WiZ]

I saw it on TIL, and suspect the post on the Cryptic Crossword subreddit was what triggered the learning of this fact.

Speaking of TIL - TIL there's a Cryptic Crossword subreddit. Will have to check it out...

[Balin]

Ought you be surprised? There's a subreddit for everything.

(r/crosswords, by the way. I'm well and truly hooked.)