Envious Casca December 2018 Group Read Spoilers Thread.

[Karlyne]

And a very thin, sharp blade is different from a chunky carving knife, too. Kind of like the difference between a paper cut and a pair of pinking shears!

[Teresa]

I'm with you Nick. Slightly far fetched????

[Nick]

Paper cuts are the worst!

(Disclaimer: never actually had a pinking sheer cut.)

[Karlyne]

Not that I ever have, but you really don't want to get a finger in the way of sharp pinking shears....😁

[Karlyne]

Nick wrote: "Yes, the lumbago! I suppose lumbago must be very painful then - if it's as bad as getting stabbed!"

Have you read about how Elizabeth died? Pretty amazing.

[Jackie]

even if Elizabeth died the same way, it still seems like a pretty chancy way to commit a murder. what if he'd collapsed on the stair before he got to his room?

[Karlyne]

It was definitely chancy! Joe was banking on nobody being in the immediate area and that not only would Nat walk on his own, but he'd close the bedroom door and lock it, giving everybody the "locked room" alibi. He was taking a whole lot of risks, but I think his ego made him sure he'd never be suspected. He was a definite villain!

[Sheila (in LA)]

Jackie wrote: "even if Elizabeth died the same way, it still seems like a pretty chancy way to commit a murder. what if he'd collapsed on the stair before he got to his room?"

The inspector does address this by saying: "If he'd turned faint at once, no doubt Joseph would have helped him up to his room, and left him there. Don't forget he thought he'd got rid of the rest of the house-party! He had to take a risk."

Having finished the book, I will report that I correctly guessed the perpetrator but not the means. I suspected the locked room was a red herring, so to speak. I thought back to a trick I remembered from an Agatha Christie story, in which the murderer arranges for the victim to fall and when approaching said victim to "assist", stabs him instead. I couldn't make it work for this scenario, though I tried (but not that hard).

I think I've only read three GH mysteries, but this is my favorite so far. Very satisfying. Joseph was a perfectly convincing villain!

[Nick]

Karlyne wrote: "Have you read about how Elizabeth died? Pretty amazing."

It is very fantastical, isn't it?! Wikipedia seems to agree that her extremely tight corsets were a factor in her walking away with the wound, so I'm still not entirely sure it works in the novel - but I guess Joseph was willing to take a big risk and got lucky!

[Critterbee❇]

There was an episode of Sherlock where they used this idea.

Major Sherlock Spoiler ahead!
(view spoiler)[ One of the Queen's Guards, wearing not a corset (haha) but only that tight little white belt, was stabbed and nothing happened until he took the belt off, and then he started bleeding because there was no pressure on the wound. The guy was OK, Dr. Watson was there to save him.

Later on in the episode, it turned out that the poor guard was just an attempt by the attacker to see if it worked. The main target (per the attacker's pov) was another soldier in dress uniform with a little tight belt. Dr Watson saved him, too! (hide spoiler)]

[Karlyne]

Nick wrote: "Karlyne wrote: "Have you read about how Elizabeth died? Pretty amazing."

It is very fantastical, isn't it?! Wikipedia seems to agree that her extremely tight corsets were a factor in her walking a..."

Sometimes I wonder how much our perception of pain is influenced by knowledge of it! I can remember as a kid coming home from a hard day's play with blood clotting on a scraped ankle or tracks of blood running down my leg - and not any idea of how they got there!

[Abigail]

I agree! When I was pathologically skinny as a kid I once split open my knee all the way down to the patella, just by flexing it. I had no idea it had happened until the kid I was playing with screamed and fainted, and then I was in a panic!

[Karlyne]

Abigail wrote: "I agree! When I was pathologically skinny as a kid I once split open my knee all the way down to the patella, just by flexing it. I had no idea it had happened until the kid I was playing with scre..."

I don't faint, but I might if I saw that now!!!!

[Maith]

Karlyne wrote: "Nick wrote: "Karlyne wrote: "Have you read about how Elizabeth died? Pretty amazing."

It is very fantastical, isn't it?! Wikipedia seems to agree that her extremely tight corsets were a factor in ..."

So true! I have permanently scarred knees and shins from sundry childhood hurts most of which I have absolutely no memory of getting. We had white knee-length stockings as part of our school uniform - and my poor mother always bewailed the various blood stains I acquired on them by falling down or scraping myself otherwise!

[Nick]

Very true! Once when I was about 11 I fell down a hill and hit my head on a paving slab at the bottom. I had no idea that I'd done any damage until I walked back up the hill and my friend started screaming because I was bleeding down one side of my head!

[Susan in NC]

Critterbee❇ wrote: "There was an episode of Sherlock where they used this idea.

Major Sherlock Spoiler ahead!
One of the Queen's Guards, wearing not a corset (haha) but only that tight little white belt, was stabbe..."

I saw that episode right around the time I read this the last time, so I just accepted the murder method in the book without really questioning it!

[Karlyne]

Nick wrote: "Very true! Once when I was about 11 I fell down a hill and hit my head on a paving slab at the bottom. I had no idea that I'd done any damage until I walked back up the hill and my friend started s..."

It's definitely the poor friends who are traumatized for life!

[Carolm]

As this was only my second GH mystery, after trying to read Penhallow, I was pleasantly surprised by this book. The first chapters are very slow, until the murder happens. Until he is killed, Nat is my favourite character. I thoroughly enjoyed Hemmingway, especially his exchanges with Stephen. For pretty much most of the novel I was wondering why Matilda attended the party, but have decided it was her unrequited love for Stephen.

As for the matches on the cover of my book, I have decided that they represent the cigarette case.

[Louise Sparrow]

It definitely picked up for me in the second half.

I did guess who did it, and I'd worked out the book was going to be important but I didn't guess exactly how it was done.

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂]

& just an aside...

I'm reading Daphne: Portrait of Daphne Du Maurier with the Retro Reads group.

Both authors struggled with plagiarism - du Maurier was accused of it, GH had so many writers who plagiarised her! Apparently author Elinor Mordaunt wrote a book, then discovered the plot was very similar to Envious Casca. She asked her publisher to apologise/explain to GH.