But also what’s this bullshit?? Don’t tell her?? Do tell her! She’s an adult for god’s sake. Also do tell us. This is all very vague and I need more info.
(I just finished chapter 6 last night. I increased speed so much to catch up with the book club that now I’m having trouble hitting the brakes )
This book is definitely a faster read than most others in the advanced range. Partially because this is the fifth book we’ve read in the series, but I think the writing style has something to do with it too.
I feel like there’s a lot more blank space in this volume than the last ones. There’s been a lot of half liners and such. We’ve had lists before, but here there’s a lot of half conscious stream of thought going on.
Anyway, what? Why? Oh no. Not gonna lie, when people talk about an illness if the blood, what springs to mind us leukemia. Let’s hope it’s not that?
As for not telling her. I suppose they want her to focus on recovering her strength first?
That last section took a lot of attention away from what else we learned in the first half of the chapter. I suppose what 萌絵 is thinking is something along the lines of: マリモ arrived earlier than she said and committed the deed, then she went back to the konbini, called for her alibi and had the accident.
But there’s no way she could have locked the place from the inside between 6 and 8 o clock, so it doesn’t quite pan out.
Something the grandson said caught my attention. Only お祖父ちゃん was there, but he’s not there anymore. Did he see him leave? Was he told to say so? … Is there a second person that’s お祖父ちゃん to him?
I also just finished this chapter. So much going on!!!
I’m also going to be so angry at Saikawa if this ‘don’t tell her she’s ill’ thing is anymore long term than her being well enough to take in the information. Unfortunately I suspect it might not be
Ooooh, I was thinking that he had seen him and then he had gone, or he had been there but told the boy to say he wasn’t there but the idea of there being a second person is interesting! Maybe 月岡?
Eh, I’m not that worried. Mostly because there’s still 5 more S&M books, and I think even after S&M is over Moe still shows up in Mori’s other series
Kaneko joined the club! If there was any point in ranking Moe’s suitors, I’d put him over Saikawa too.
I think that there’s definitely something hidden in the boy’s testimony. He basically immediately contradicted himself, didn’t he? He said ojiichan wasn’t there, and then then that there was only ojiichan. So something funny is going on. Two ojiichans is a neat idea, if that’s it then I think Tsukioka is the only character that could be the second ojiichan.
I don’t know if this is actually “weird” or not, but something else I noticed is that when Moe asked him if the victim was there, he said いない–not いなかった. いない made sense in the scene where it happened, but shouldn’t it be いなかった by now? A thought I had is that the boy is talking about grandpa being there as in being alive, and so when he says いない, it’s the same way in English we might say “someone isn’t with us anymore” as a euphemism for being dead. Which would mean that even if Rinsui wasn’t in the studio anymore (because he was dead), his body could have been. (…I know this is kind of high-level for a 6 year old, but it seems like a fairly philosophical family, so )
I’m starting to suspect Marimo… and not just because the book obviously wants me to. I don’t know if she’s the actual killer, but she’s probably involved, or at least has juicy testimony she’s withholding. In last week’s discussion thread I mentioned how I still thought what happened with her car was weird. Well, when something is weird in a mystery story, you don’t just accept it, you dig into possible causes. The cigarette butt suggests Marimo might have been at the house on the night of the crime. I thought the placement of Marimo’s car was weird, because she was on the right side of the bridge, but if she was crossing and veered right, the natural response would be to jerk left. But what if she was returning from the Kayama house? If she saw an oncoming car, she’d jerk left–and into the spot where her car was found.
She was also thrown clear of the car… Could a similar thing have happened to the corpse…?
The book is suggesting that Kelly barked because there was someone unfamiliar in the studio. That isn’t necessarily why she barked, but I’m going to assume it is, because that seems to be Mori’s way of playing fair with an animal involved. Unless Setsuko ends up being our twist villain, I feel like Marimo and Tsukioka are the only suspects Kelly would bark at.
Anyway, I continue to find it interesting how Mori will insert long stretches of time where nothing happens. Very different from most mystery novels, that resolve themselves in a few days. I guess that plays in with the overarching story on Saikawa and Moe’s lives and relationship.
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