🏨 マスカレード・ホテル 🎭 Week 10 (ABC Reading Club)

:hotel: マスカレード・ホテル :performing_arts: Week 10


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Week 10 19 October 2024
Parts 30-33
End Page 463
End phrase 忙しくなる頃だ」
Total Pages 43
Previous week Week 9
Next week Week 11

Vocabulary

Discussion Guidelines

Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

  1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.

  2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).

  3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.

Instructions for Spoiler Tags

Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).

Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:

Example

This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.

The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.

This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.

Posting Advice
  • When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.

  • Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!

Trigger Warnings

None known.

Proper Nouns

Name Reading Notes
山岸 尚美 やまぎし なおみ Main character
新田 浩介 にった こうすけ Main character

Further names are listed in the Vocabulary Sheet found above! Let me know if you’d like to be able to check them here as well.

Participation

Will you be reading along with us this week?

  • I’m reading along
  • I have finished this part ahead of the club
  • I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this part yet
  • I’m reading this book after the club has finished
  • I stopped reading the book
0 voters

If you’ve already read this book but are still going to join the discussion, please select “I have finished this part.”

Don’t forget to set this thread to Watching in order to stay abreast of discussion!

1 Like

I haven’t read this week’s part yet so no spoilers here. :slight_smile:

It doesn’t feel like we’re that close to the end, honestly. I suppose the pace shows the slow side of police investigations quite well in that regard. I could really feel 新田’s frustration over not being able to just solve the case, and not being involved in the ‘action’, as it were, these last weeks.

5 Likes

I completely agree with your view here. I also think that the author did a very good job in making us feel what it is presumably like for the police very often - looking for clues without any real progress, making a small step ahead, looking for clues, possibly starting all over with a different theory, looking for clues…

Even more so in the case of 新田 here, because his main task is to be „actively watching and waiting patiently for something to happen“.

5 Likes

Finished with this week’s part quite late! I’ve been playing a lot of 牧場物語オリーブタウン this week, which has been great but also hugely impacted my reading. :joy:

Finally, things seem to be going somewhere - not only is the wedding right around the corner, tampered wine bottle included. 新田 and 能勢 are following their own theory and seem to be getting somewhere with it. I’m looking forward to the conclusion next week!

(Not gonna lie; there’s a part of me that’s happy to be done with this book after almost 500 pages. :sweat_smile:)

5 Likes

OK, here’s my theory of where this is going:

  • x4 wants to do two murders, but doesn’t want the police to realize that the murders are connected.
  • So, they came up with the fake serial killer plan so that one of the murders would be associated with the serial killer and the other would not.
  • It’s probably safe to assume that the aspiring actor/model was one of the targets and that the second murder will happen in the hotel.
  • The bride-to-be is very suspicious to me. It’s possible that she’s hiding the stalker from her fiance because the stalker doesn’t actually exist. She has access to a bunch of places in the hotel, no one suspects her… and if she’s x4, it would fit the lesson from an earlier chapter about people entering the hotel (either in a group or alone) in ways that disguise their actual relationships or motivations.
  • I have no idea about any more details than that :sweat_smile:
2 Likes

Ah that’s an interesting theory! So far nobody has seen the stalker or anything; she could have pretty much faked all of it. :exploding_head:

2 Likes