If I were to kill somebody I’d do it in an old-school cozy mystery way, like by poisoning the wealthy aristocrat’s liquor. And then the old lady - or the four kids and dog who drive around in a funky van - who is/are the crime solver/s will call everyone in the mansion - because I’m staying in this mansion, with all these other people, tons of suspicious maids and butlers and other servants, and me, being creepy - into the grand sitting room (it’s nighttime at this point, and the fire is crackling, and someone is sitting in the big red velvet chair and smoking a pipe, and then there’s this loud ominous crack of thunder! Bang! Like that) and then the old lady or leader of the band of crime-solving teenagers says, “It was Ms Scarlet, in the kitchen, with the pipe!” (Who decided to put the pipe in Cluedo? How often do people get killed by pipes? How illogical is Cluedo, anyway? Most moronic board game ever. Or at least up in the top 3, with Monopoly and dumb Monopoly Junior). And after this announcement, I appear out of the shadows, sipping scotch and I’m wearing this black beret, right, and I’ve got this wicked gleam in my eye and I’m all, ‘You’re wrong! It was I!’ Because of course the only reason I’d ever poison a wealthy aristocrat was because I wanted people to pay attention to me. I’m like that. And then it turns out that my face it actually a mask and I am not really Steph Bowe at all! Which is quite good because, I mean, why would I kill a wealthy aristocrat? And why would I be drinking scotch? And congratulations if you read all this. Good on you.
I'm thinking about this because the book I'm working on - and by 'working on' I mean occasionally writing, mostly agonising over, and by 'the book' I mean 'one of three books, all of which are infuriatingly complicated and weird' - involves a murder. And I'm trying to figure out why the murderer would kill the murderee the way in which they have.
