Questions About The Murder House

by James Patterson (Goodreads Author)

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Answered Questions (21)

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Abhishek

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Why do some people post relevant plot points including character names? Please don't post spoilers. I'm sure I've found out the killer's name already and I've only started to read the book. What a bummer.

Dawn Currie I agree, I just stay off of this site while reading. If I know I want to read a a certain book, I just look it up, I wont read any reviews.

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What time of year does this mystery take place?

Tina It goes back and forth between a couple decades. Nothing like centuries ago. It is so good!!!!

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Abhishek

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)[Hope this helps :) My answers are as follows :-

1. After the recent murder of Melanie and Zachary in the bedroom on the 2nd floor in the mansion, the police did seal off the place as a crime scene. They might have looked in other areas in and around the mansion, but that's not mentioned in the novel, so we don't know. Even if they checked the basement, it was next to impossible to be able to find the secret passage as the basement was heavily locked at all times. It was only at the end of the story that Jenna found the passage, only because Aiden was staying there and had removed all the furniture around the secret passage and the basement locks.

Moreover, in the novel's beginning, they almost immediately found a possible suspect - Noah - and later he was convicted, which brought the case to an end.

Though after Noah's exoneration, the case should have been re-opened (all unsolved cases need to be re-opened but in the novel it has been neither mentioned explicitly or implicitly, so we don't know) and the police should have looked for clues in all places - the mansion being one of those places. But the new police chief himself believed Noah to be the murderer, who was set free and the case was probably not actively pursued with the same original enthusiasm.

2. Justin was no kin to Holden VI, his mother worked in the mansion once a week. He saved Holden VI from suicide on two occasions and they slowly bonded as friends after Holden witnessed that Justin had the same suicidal tendencies as him. Once in his contact, Justin's thought processes were influenced (he laid his hands upon the ancestral Dahlquist diary containing confessions of all the ancestors and Holden VI himself). He started believing that he too, had a "monster inside" him.

We should note that before coming into contact with Holden, Justin had committed no violent transgressions (all were pranks for example he shot the lamp around a person lying on the beach, but not the person). Some may argue that his suicidal tendency (the act of pulling Holden's gun on himself) was a learned behavior on witnessing Holden VI trying to kill himself on two separate occasions.

3. Isaac was presumably (it's never confirmed in the novel) called on by Aiden himself, after he fled the place. While Isaac's on the phone, he says that "Did she really say that you" and "I'll take care of her" - this is an indirect attestation that he was speaking to Aiden about Jenna. ("Did she really say that you" is a reference to Jenna who, after breaking into Aiden's house, screamed "What did you do to me when I was a child" to Aiden) (hide spoiler)]

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What character used the bebe gun in the 1st chapter? Justin is an enigma throughout the novel. Can anyone explain Justin's character ?