🏨 マスカレード・ホテル 🎭 Week 5 (ABC Reading Club

:hotel: マスカレード・ホテル :performing_arts: Week 5


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Week 5 14 September 2024
Parts 11-13
End Page 225
End phrase …がハンカチで目頭を押さえるのが見えた。
Total Pages 46
Previous week Week 4
Next week Week 6

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?

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

4 Likes
Thoughts for this week (Chapter 13 spoilers)

The minute Naomi told the lady which room the “stalker” was in, I knew the rest would happen. As the other employee said, the husband was a regular customer!
I still feel like I’m waiting for one of the events that happen with the customers to be main plot related, but at the same time it shows well how on the edge Nitta and Naomi are, due to expecting a killer to show up at anytime, and also gives time for their relationship to evolve.

5 Likes
Spoilers for this week

I had the exact same feeling when she told her the room number. I am also wondering when “main plot” will happen. Actually since early in the book I have been wondering about the plot structure. Before reading I was expecting serial murders in the hotel, but since we learnt that the murders have been at different places (at least so far), they really are waiting for what is presumably the murder at this hotel.

And yeah, this book really likes fake outs. I suppose that is a way to keep the tension up. I’m assuming when a murder happens that there’s a good chance it’ll take the characters completely by surprise (I am mean, with all the suspicious individuals so far, if a murder suddenly occurred said individual would have been the prime suspect…). Or it’ll tie back to some unassuming detail earlier in the book as opposed to one of these “there’s someone clearly acting suspicious” episodes.

5 Likes

Exactly how I feel.

I’m thinking that too. Would be a bit weird otherwise that some 200 pages are not at all main plot related. Ought to be a reason why they are there!

3 Likes

I felt the same about the ‘stalker’ situation. Although I honestly expected something a bit more sinister, such as maybe the lady guest being a stalker herself or a private eye. When the hostess entered the hotel room all was clear though. :sweat_smile:

So far, 尚美 has seemed rather the brighter of the two, at least in so far as catching on to irregularities and sudden insights are concerned. But I think that’s at least in part because 新田’s solving of the coordinates happened offscreen…

200+ pages of setup indeed is quite long! :joy: I’m not bored yet; I’m enjoying seeing the relationships between the characters but also the institutions develop. Neither the police nor the hotel administration is happy with each other - 尚美 and 新田, meanwhile, are becoming something of confidants. It’s an interesting dynamic.

It’s about time for something to happen, though!

5 Likes

I had the same thought (as did 尚美 and 新田 I suppose).

新田 also figured out that the blind woman was faking it. They both seem pretty sharp.

Random thought: the hotel has some kind of underground shopping area beneath it, right? That would have the same GPS coordinates as the hotel itself…

2 Likes

True! I forgot about that.

Plot twist: the hotel had nothing to do with the murder! :joy: (Not likely, with that title. But that would be ‘fun’) I don’t remember that bit about the underground shopping area either, to be honest. Do you know when it was mentioned?

4 Likes

Around page 29 when 新田 gets his haircut. I’m not sure how much is down there other than the barbershop though.

4 Likes