Thank you for the kind words @Belthazar @Rowena @Radish8 
I just found a picture where my cat reminded me of Capone from the story. Look at his scowl haha.
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It’s the home stretch, guys… This week we’re starting the final story’s “solution”.
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Well that made me do a double take for a bit 
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Yes, perhaps not the wisest choice of wording. 
A right-wing “let’s make Australia white again” type politician over here used the phrase “final solution” in relation to the refugee “problem” here during a speech to parliament a few months ago, and even the politicians more racist than him hissed “shut up! Do you even know what that means?”
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Putting the quotation marks around the second word makes it okay though… right?!
Also…
btw, is this the most thoroughly off-topic we’ve gotten on this thread so far?
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Aye, indeed.
In this thread, maybe. You started it, though.
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Penultimate week!
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I feel like we’ve lost a few regular readers from the polls the last week or two how are people getting along? Would be a shame to lose people so close to the end of the book.
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Sorry - doc had me off and back on meds, which threw me for a loop 
(became semi-nocturnal, fuzzy-brained, lethargic). Finally feeling better today, so will crack on with reading from tomorrow (bedtime now).
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Oh gosh, there’s nothing to apologise for! Just wanted to make sure everyone was okay 
sorry to hear you weren’t well, but glad it seems to have settled a bit. Happy reading ^-^
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Oops, I forgot to vote this week! I’ve been following along with the threads, but I actually finished a few weeks ago. I just voted in the cutest cat contest a few moments ago though (priorities 
).
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Thank you for the ping - it’s nice to know that my absence was noticed!
I have been struggling to keep up my reading over the last two weeks, mostly due to work commitments. I am hopeful I can get through a double serving this weekend, and I will go and update my poll entry.
Sort of unrelated, but - last night while out second-hand book shopping I came across a copy of A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar for $3. As I know, from experience, how expensive this book is first-hand I have picked it up to give away to someone in this club who can make use of it. Preferably someone in Australia! although I’m not exactly sure how to get people’s addresses on a forum that doesn’t support private messages…
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This is lovely of you (I am an Aussie, but a DBJG-owning one).
I would suggest that once you have found a recipient, that they email the WK team asking them to forward the info to you - I expect that they won’t mind considering the Japanese-grammar love you are helping to spread.
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Ahahaha, absolutely 
Book club buddies are important! please don’t stress about catching up at the weekend - would be awesome if you could read it along with the rest of us, but not if you overwork yourself making it happen.
Also, $3 is crazy cheap for that dictionary. Rowena’s suggestion of asking the WK team to mediate is a good idea.
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Last week! 
I’ll be posting some discussion points on the book as a whole at the end of this week, so hold tight till then 
Final stretch - がんばって！
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As a coda, I hope everyone reads Capone’s last book reviews. This line in particularly managed to pull a guffaw from me because I’m not sure how it comes across in the original, but it seemed extremely harsh for a kids book as I read it: 犬を連れて来るなよ。全く、犬が居なかったら、もっと世の中楽しいのにな。The creation of the Hans Christian Andersen cinematic universe was also a nice touch.
For anyone who slams into the grammar point e.g. 小人の家にかえろうとしているんだ, I believe this is 小人の家に帰ろうとしている, i.e. 返る in volitional form + とする in continuous form + explanatory んだ - see bunpro item 267 or this article here.
Towards the other end, someone is referred to as a “かるい女め” - this use of め as a “suffix of contempt” doesn’t seem to get a lot of coverage in the books I have to hand (oddly, it is not the same め as in 手前, which you hear around the traps and is actually てめえ) - but it does pop up in this stackexchange question and the Wikipedia article on Japanese profanity. (See also here.)
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…We made it to the end! Huge congratulations to everybody who has completed the book - especially if this was your first ever 
I had a lot of fun reading this book with everyone, and hope it was a good experience for all of you. Thank you so much to everybody who participated in the discussions, asked questions and answered questions.
…to the polls!
Which was your favourite of the three stories?
- Story One - 赤いとびらの家
- Story Two - 犯人はカポネ？
- Story Three - にゃんにゃん大行進
0 voters
Tell me why 
Did you enjoy this book?
- I did not enjoy it
- It was alright
- I enjoyed it
- I loved it!
0 voters
I won’t be offended if you didn’t
If you’ve read both, which of the two Kitty Detectives books did you prefer?
- Volume 1
- Volume 2 (this one)
- I’ve only read one of them
0 voters
I won’t be offended if you preferred the other one
I plan to run a club for the first Doggy Detectives book in the near future, so keep your eyes peeled for that thread.
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To answer my own questions…
I’m torn between stories 1 and 3. The middle story was short and silly, so definitely not that one. I felt like #3 had the most fun story, while #1 had the most fun mystery. I was able to suss out nearly the entire plot from the clues given in #1, but not because it was all stupidly obvious. The last one felt too ridiculous, so even the parts I worked out just felt a bit dumb. But it had the most fun setup and the most fun ending.
I did enjoy the book - a surprising amount. I think that, surprise surprise, being an adult meant that the mysteries were not as mentally stimulating as they could have been - although I maintain that just because you’re writing something for children doesn’t mean it has to have actual plot holes. But I was pleasantly surprised by how entertaining it was nonetheless, and it was also a nice smooth reading experience for me.
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I enjoyed story 1 the most, also because it felt most like an actual mystery. I didn’t see the solution coming at all (probably cause I was close-reading word for word ). As for the book as a whole, I loved reading it! The difficulty level has been perfect, the stories have been entertaining and, most of all, the book itself is so nicely illustrated that it’s been a joy to read it!
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I enjoyed reading it, too. Like @nienque mentioned, the drawings were super cute and the languages have a nice mix of difficulties. A few more cat detective related things or a story following カポネ around for a day, solving a cat mystery, would have been nice. 
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