I'm a murder mystery/impossible crime fanatic and author. I like locked rooms, footprints in the snow, missing murder weapons, and unreliable suspects.
View all posts by jamesscottbyrnside
7 thoughts on “October 15th”
Can’t wait for the release,have an impossible crime for sure?
I take it there are five ways to commit suicide depicted in the cover (all of them false, of course, because murder) . Let’s play the game, James.
1) gun 2)rope 3) poison 4) knife
The elusive fifth way is the mighty riddle of the Sphinx. Let’s see…
I’d say either it’s the unknown, undepicted way in which the fancy, smug skeleton became what he is now… Or… Ummm, tough one…
Why of course! That’s no ordinary green background, dude just took an acid bath!
Or maybe those are four false weapons (see what I did there).
Not gonna lie, the concept is pretty good. Are you using different methods for each “suicide” in the novel?
It’s not quite so formal. The main point of each false suicide will be the locked-room aspect rather than the method. If the reader can see through the smoke and mirrors, there is an incredibly obvious solution to each one.
As it should be. I mean, you could devise a locked room in which a woman lies dead surrounded by twenty razor-wielding yard gnomes and twenty stab wounds on her body… It’s all about creating the “mythology” behind the murder, having fun and bullshiting around in order to obfuscate things, as there are only so many ways a locked room murder can be achieved. Build-up and presentation are key… but you already know that.
James Scott Byrnside 
Can’t wait for the release,have an impossible crime for sure?
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But of course.
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I take it there are five ways to commit suicide depicted in the cover (all of them false, of course, because murder) . Let’s play the game, James.
1) gun 2)rope 3) poison 4) knife
The elusive fifth way is the mighty riddle of the Sphinx. Let’s see…
I’d say either it’s the unknown, undepicted way in which the fancy, smug skeleton became what he is now… Or… Ummm, tough one…
Why of course! That’s no ordinary green background, dude just took an acid bath!
Or maybe those are four false weapons (see what I did there).
Not gonna lie, the concept is pretty good. Are you using different methods for each “suicide” in the novel?
LikeLike
It’s not quite so formal. The main point of each false suicide will be the locked-room aspect rather than the method. If the reader can see through the smoke and mirrors, there is an incredibly obvious solution to each one.
LikeLike
As it should be. I mean, you could devise a locked room in which a woman lies dead surrounded by twenty razor-wielding yard gnomes and twenty stab wounds on her body… It’s all about creating the “mythology” behind the murder, having fun and bullshiting around in order to obfuscate things, as there are only so many ways a locked room murder can be achieved. Build-up and presentation are key… but you already know that.
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Exciting news! Is ‘Oct 15’ the projected deadline for the cover to be illustrated – or for the novel to be released? 🤩
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Novel release. This is my first stab at drawing a cover. Who knows what the final cover will look like?
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