The Orient Express, murder on part 1 ch 1 through part 2 ch 8

part 1 ch 1 an important passenger on the Taurus experss

The Taurus express is a train that goes from Syria to Stamboul. Poirot is on the train with a couple English people. A man that's been in India and a Lady that's been a governess in Bagdhad. They appear to be having a bit of a fling. There's a little bit of worry from the lady at one point when the train has to stop that they'll be significantly delayed because the train is scheduled to get in at 6.55 pm Monday evening and she has another train she has to catch at 9 pm. The orient express.  No need to worry, the delay was only 10 minutes and they got there with plenty of time for her to catch her train.

part 1 ch 2 The toklatlian Hotel

This chapter is badly named.  It's named for the hotel Poirot had planned to stay at for a  few days to be a tourist in Stamboul.  But he gets a telegraph tellinghim he needs to get bak to london.  So he gets on the orient express heading to London.  There's drama.

part 1 ch 3 Poirot refuses a case

Poirot has a room mate cause the train is full.  They go to breakfast together.  Poirot notices the lady and man from the previous train are there but not dining together.  Perhaps the budding romance didn't bloom.  Or perhaps they're very interested in each other but practicing some decorum.  A mr rachet comes to Poroit and overs him $20,000 to take teh case to protect him.  Poirot is on the way to a case that interests him and he refuses to take Mr rachet's casue because he doesn't like his face.

part 1 ch 4 a cry in the night

Poirot gets off the train in Belgrade.  Not for long cuase it's FRICKIN FREEZING and when he gets back on the train he's told tht his stuff has been moved from compartment 7 to compartment 1.  The guy in compartment 1 has moved to the new train car that got added on.  It was a part of the train that came in from Athens.  Poirot goes to his old compartment to talk to his old room mate.  He had thought that Poirot hasd left the train cause Poirot did tell him he was going to get off for a bit and then all of a sudden his stuff was gone.  Poriot explains the whole deal.  Poirot talks to an old lady whos int he compartmnet across the hall from rachet's.  Poirot goes to his new compartment, which turns out to be the compartment that is next to Rachet's. 

part 1 ch 5 the crime

They're stopped.  I don't remember why.  People don't love it.  Then it's reported that there was a murder.  it was mr rachet and he was stabbed A LOT.  Somebody says it msut have been a woman cause only women do that much stabbing.  A man would have just stabbed something omportant and moved on.  someobody's all like, we gotta solve this thing or the slavics are gonna inconvenience us.  So Poirot is all like, fine, let's solve this crime.

part 1 ch 6 a woman

Michael Bouc has inserted himself into the investigation with Poirot.  The conductor brings Poirot all of the passengers passposrts and Poirot askes to see Mr Rachet's assistant Mr Mac Queeen. Poirot asks Michael to leave.  So maybe he hasn't quite as forcefully inserted himself into things as I thought.  Mr mac queen talks about how Mr rachet had received some threatening letter.  He brings the letters to Poirot.  They're sure threatening.  Poirot  thinks they were written very carefully with different people writing different letters in each word so that none of the hand writing would be identifyable as a single person's.  Mr Mac Queen admins he doesn't know much about Mr. Rachet's past or anything.  He met him in Persia when he was there working for an oil company.  He says he doesn't think tht Mr Rachet is his real name and he thinks he fled America cause of some trouble and these letters are that trouble catching up with him.  Once again, the idea tht it might have been a woman because the number of stab wounds makes them think it's a personal emotional situation.

part 1 ch 7 the body.

Poirot and the doctor examine Mr Rachet's room and body.  His window was open and Poirot thinks the killer wanted people to think he had fled through the window.  Poirot thinks this is very dumb because of all the snow.  Like the killer came up with this brilliant open window idea at some point and then didn't bother to adjust for the face that no one would have fled through that window into a billzard.  There's other clues but Poirot doesn't really trust them.  He feels like there's either a man that did the crime and made it look like a woman did it or a woman that did it trying to make it loook like a man did it.  There's some shenhannegans with a hat box and he finds a piece of paprer with Elizabeth Armstrong written on it.  From this one thing he claims he knows things all of a sudden in that Poirot kinda way, which explains nothing to you the reader.  The doctor is all like "oh yeah, I heard about this business in America."

part 1 ch 8 the armstrong kidnapping case

They think Ratchet was really a guy named Cassetti who was responsible for the kidnapping and death of Daisy Armstrong the three year old grand daughter of some rich guy.  So they think they know the why and how.  Now they need to figure out who.

Part 2 CH 1 the evidence of the wagon lit conductor

They're interviewing people in the dining room car.  They first interview Pierre Michale the wagon lit conductor.  I guess he's like the train version of a flight attendant.  They go over a bunch of scruff we already know.  Poirot tells him to leave and is not under suspicion.

Part 2 CH 2 the evidence of the secretary.

Poirot talks to Rachet's secretary Mr MacQueen.  Poirot tells MacQueen that Rachet is really CAssetti.  Turns out MacQueen's dad was the DA on the Daisy Armstrong case.  So MacQueen is happy to see Cassetti dead.  He couldn't have done it though becuase he spent his time til 2 am with the british guy that's been in India.  They got out together for a bit at a stop and then didn't lock the door on their way back in.  So it's entirely possible someone got on the train behind them through that door.  The only people they saw pass them during their time together were the conductor and a lady that couldn't identify.

part 2 ch 3 Evidence of the valet

Rachet has another employee.  He's a valet.  Poiroit asks if he smokes a pipe and he says no.  He wasn't too fond of Mr Rachet.  He wasn't against him, but not hugely suprised to find out that he turned out to be a bad dude and that someone murdered him.  He didn't sleep well that night cause he had a tooth ache.  He's in the same room as the big Italian and says he didn't leave the room that night.

part 2 ch 4 the amaerican woman

The american woman is mrs. Hubbard.  She swears there was a man in her room.  She didn't see him becuase instead of looking at him or screaming or anything she hid under the covers.  So she's a super useful person.  She pressed the button to call the conductor.  I don't know what an English conductor is.  In American, the conductor is the guy that drives the drain and blows the whistle and what not.  I'll ask about that in book club.  The conductor comes and turns on the light and there's no man there.  But the door to the next compartment is unlocked.  Who's compartment?  Mr Rachet's.  Maybe there was a man in her room and he snuck into Mr Rachet's room and murdered him.  As with every other witness, Poirot tells her that Mr rachet is Cassetti who was in charge of the Daisy Armstrong murder.  Her first thought was, what will my daughter say when I tell her.  Then she also mentions that last night she heard a woman in Mr Rachet's room.

part 2 ch 5 the sweedish lady

The sweedish lady does not have a scarlett comono.  That's what someobdy said they saw a lady going down the hall wearing near the time of the murder.  She says her room mate (the governess from bagdad) doesn't either.  The sweedish lady is going home for the holidays.  M. Bouc and Poirot look over a timeline together.  M. Boac thinks the big italian is the murderer.  Poirot points out that according to the testimoni of the valet, this can't be.

part 2 ch 6 the russian princess

This chapter starts with them talking to Pierre Micheal becuase  abutton was found in the sweedish lady's compartment that matches his.  He did go to her compartment so they're thinking maybe he dropped the button or the murdered had the button.  But all his buttons are accounted for.  Each train car has a conductor and they wear the same uniforms and the other two conductors come in to A) vouge for Pierre Michels' wearabouts at the time of the murder and B) show that all their buttons are accounted for.  They then interview Natalia Dragmiroff.  She lives in Paris.  Her room mate is her maid HIldegarde Schmidt and she's been with her for fifteen years.  They talk about how Mr. Rachet was responsible for Daisy Armstrong's death and Natalia tells Poirot that she was good friends with Linda Arden, Daisy's grand mother.  So another person with a direct connection.

part 2 ch 7 Count and countes Andrenyi

The count straight away tells Poirot that he and his wife will be of no use.  They were asleep during the murder.  The count doesn't react to the news that ratchet was responsible for daisy Armstrong's murder.  He says it's unnecessary to interview his wife.  Poirot insists.  He asks her if the count smokes a pipe and what color her dressing gown is like he's done with everyone else.  Once again m Bouc suggests they interview the big italian.

Part 2 Ch 8 colonel arbuthnot 

Colonel Arbuthnot spent the bulk of the evening discussing world politics with Mr ratchets Secretary.  They were so engrossed in their talk that it was nearly two am before he went to bed.  He does smoke a pipe.  He smelled a woman going by between one and two wearing fruity perfume.  Also when he left the fellow in 16 had his door open and quickly closed it when he saw the colonel.

Ill be gone in the dark.part 2 ch 14 - 27

This book doesn't actually have numbered chapters.  I went through and gave sections numbers cuase I like numbers.

Ch 14 Sacramento 2012

This chapter is all about the internet message boards where people try to figure out who the EAR/GSK/ONS is. TONS of super smart people have compiled TONS of evidence and suspect profiles and what not. They're kind of wasting their lives and they know it. But the more involved they get the more it motivates them to keep digging. There's a fun chat board guy everyone calls the kid who's probably got the most expansive data set.  Michelle comes to him with a suspect and he's all, oh, that guy, we figured out it couldn't be him a while ago.

ch 15 East Sacramento 2012

Michelle talks a bit with Richard Shelby.  They're like "why aren't there more people reporting suspcious activities from the EAR era?" and they're thinking maybe people just don't trust the cops back in the late seventies and Shelby says it's more like people just aren't that detail oriented.  Like one time he got a call saying someone found a backpack with a mask and other suspcious stuff in it and he was like "throw it away" and that was that.  EAR just did a really meticulous job of picking out the neighborhoods and eventual victims to make sure that it was the easiest target and he did a pretty good job of avoiding suspicioun during the mean time.  Michelle is going through a GIANT file of police reports in her Sacramento hotel.  It's ultimately just a really frustrating experience.  She doesn't really learn anything she didn't already know.

Ch 16 The Cuff Links coda

 Michelle gets the cufflinks overnighted to her house.  The kid thinks this is not wise.  Maybe to EAR-ONS sold those cuff links to find someone to be his next victim.  Michelle gets the honor of interviewing Larry Poole.  He's a very reserved kinda guy.  She gives him the cufflinks and he's like "I think I might love you."  Turns out they're not THE cufflinks.  You win some, you lose some.  Well, thus far, they lose all of them.

ch 17 Los Angeles 2012

This chapter is an illustration of how otherwise good people don't go the extra mile you might think they would to prevent crime that allows people like the EAR-ONS to get away with it for so long.  It's Thanksgiving and Michelle has a deadline to meet.  She's getting a few too many dorbell rings, but she's busy so she ignores them.  She notices a young african american man sort of wandering the neighborhood, ringing doorbells.  She's going out to dinner with some friends.  She bumps into her neighbor and she tells her they got robbed.  Michelle's thinking it must have been the wanderer.  If she had called the cops or told other people in the neighborhood of her suspicious maybe this would have been avoided.  She says she's gonna try to be a better neighbor.  But probably not.  tht's the whole point.  We all have our own busy lives, we do't have time to play amature cops.

ch 18 contra costa 2013 concord

She's meeting with Paul holes to go around to the east bay area where he was active in 1978.  All single story houses near construction sites.  Same MO as Sacramento.  He tells the lady to tie up the man.  Then ties up the lady and rapes her.  Then he burglarizes the house for a bit.  Never leaves any evidence near the house.

Holes thinks he commute a on the 680 highway because all the victims live right off the highway.

CH 19 Sam ramon

It bothers Michelle that nobody ever calls the police around on of these EAR crimes to report prowlers or suspicious people.  Holes says its not that surprising.  People temd to keep to themselves, especially at dark when the EAR would do his prowelling.  A couple detectives in yje area.  Tried an experiment.  They prowled around at night a few times to see what they could see.  You can find oua lot t about people watching them through small crack a in the curtains.  Also, nobody noticed them and called the cops.   Michelle also thinks maybe he was some sort of uniformed worker.  The type everyone ignores cause they're just doing their job.  Nothing to see here.  Also, Holes doesn't think he always knew much about his victims.  Sometimes he knew tons and told his victim a what he knew as a power play.  Sometimes it was like he just stumbled upon the house for the first time.e and dexidwd to do a crime.

CH 20 danville

The most important thing in this chapter is the realization that Paul Holes is a good hang.  If I ever get the chance, I'm gonna hang out with Paul Holes.  Danville was largely built where it was because the railroad went through there and it expanded around said railroad.  But that railroad shutdown in 1978 and the EAR used it as an excape route from his crimes a couple times.  Bloodhouds tracked him to certain spots and then lost the trail.  The theory is that's where his car was.  You can't track a moving car by scent.  The EAR was active here and then also had a couple crimes down south at the same time.  Paul Holes has a theory.  The EAR had a plane.

ch 21 Walnut creek

There are three crimes discussed in this chapter.  It's even smaller than Walnut creek, it's in the Rancho San Miguel neighborhood of Walnut Creek developed by Joseph Eichler.  His houses are very glassy, which makes them good for the EAR to prowl on people.  This chapter makes me hate the EAR even more cause all three are minors and the last one he not only did the R word but also abducted and murdered her and dumped her in a river.  What makes it worse is that they misidentified the body as a much older Jane Doe.  Much later, after her father has alsready passed away and her mom was very old they exhumed the body and were able to properly identify it.  Here mom got closure and died a year later.

ch 22 Davis

This chapter is cool cause it's transcribed from a recorded conversation that Michelle and Paul Holes had while in Davis.  More specifically off campus housing for UC Davis.  They talk about Paul's plane theory.  He thinks the EAR works for a residentail development company.  There always seems to be construction aorund the crimes.  Because the crimes are near new constructionoften times the neighborhoods are very different now.  Two of the victims were in a carpool together.  The EAR often struck victims very close to each other.

ch 23 fred Rey

Fred Rey is a detective.  His part in this is at one point he had a case where a bunch of local teens took up being agressive peeping toms by breaking into houses late at night.  Just like the GSK does.  They talk about what a disaster it was that they didn't catch the GSK on that first night when he was set to kill for the first time on October 1 1979 on Queen ann Lane.  An FBI agent was after him and deputies were on their way and the GSK slipped away.

ch 24 The one

This chapter details a few situations where they found a suspect they thought must be "The One"  None of them were.  They were all eliminated as suspects due to alibis or DNA or both.

ch 25 Los Angeles 2014

If you're like me, this chapter is super fun cause it's spelled out to you that Michelle's husband is Patton Oswald.  If one is inclined to inquisit one should have come to that realization long ago.  Like when you saw on the front cover that the afterward was written by Patton Oswald.

ch 26 Sacramento 2014

This chapter is all about suspect Jim Walther.  He worked for the railroad and worked in cities where the GSK was active at the time when crimes were committed.  They talk to his daughter who says she hasn't talked to him since 2007.  Someone claiming to be his brother was living out of his car.  Turns out it was Jim Walther.  They did a DNA test.  He's not the GSK.

Ch 27 Sacramento 1978

They're talking more about other viable suspects that were let go and haveven't been revisited since because of kind of minor and relatively unimportant differences between them and the descriptions of the GSK.  There's a note here that Michelle passed away in 2016.  We already knew this.  This was a known fact.  Even so, I got a little emtional when I read it.

Abaddon's gate ch 1 - 27

 I.have a head cold today and looking at screens is painful, so for the first part of this.book I'm having Alexa read it to me.

Prologue

There's a giant ring past Neptune that was created by the giant squid ship that the Venus protomolecule created.  Manéo Jung-Espinoza—Néo to his friends back on Ceres Station, is a slingshot pilot.  The trick is you fire off just right and use the outer planets' and moons' gravities to take you where you wanna go.  Neo is specifically trying to launch his little ship through the ring.  He's psyched cause he's gonna be a legend.  Unfortunately for him, the ring isn't just a ring.  It's some sort of barrier and.instead of going through it, he smashes into it.

Ch 1 Holden

Things are real good on the Roci.  They've made sooo much money doing escort.jobs that they're pretty much set for the next decade.  They're buying crazy stuff like engine parts that will make the ship go so fast that none of them.could possibly live through it cause Amos thinks it's awesome.  They're living it up on Ceres, gambling away giant piles of money and drinking actual scotch from Scotland.  Insane.

Holden is in the pisser.  Miller shows up again.  Apparently this is a thing that happens routinely now.  He shows up and spouts nonsense and disappears.  Just like me in highschool.  

He goes back to their table in the casino.  Naomi comes back cause Alex got cleaned out and Naomi have him.her ships.  They talk about Miller.  He's still not making sense.  They're debating whether it's really Miller and he's figured out how to contact Holden or if it's the protomolecule wearing a Miller suit.

They're talking about Neo shooting the ring.  It's unsettling that his ship hit one side.of the ring and nothing came.out the other side.

Ch 2 Bull pg 21

Thus far the downside to this Alexa reading to me.is that I have to flip over to the kindle app to get page numbers

Carlos seed ibaka is called Bill by his friends.  He doesn't like captain Ashford.  Fred Johnson is too thin.  Bull and Fred go way back to Fred's UN days.  Neo crashing his ship into the ring is a big deal here too.  Nobody knows what the ring is yet.  Probably a portal and a bunch of little.green men are.gonna come.through and turn the solar system into a truck stop.

The OPA has retrofitted the Mormon ship to be a battle ship.  It's impressive cause it's so big and they've added a ton of guns to it.  But they all know it won't be useful in a real fight.  Even so, they're taking it to the ring so the OPA has a presence there.

Bull grew up in Mexico in a house with a thousand cousins.  When he was 16 he did his two years of hard labor when he was a kid so he could go to college.  But he preferred booze and girls and fighting to.learning so he ended up going into the Army.  

He and Fred are talking about how crap this Mormon ship situation is.  The Earth 🌎 courts are gonna rule in favor of the Mormons and demand that the OPA pay them for the ship.  The OPA ain't got that kinda money.  Bull was gonna be number two on the Mormon ship.  But Fred says Bull is gonna be head of security instead.  It's political.  They don't want an earther on the bridge of the OPA flag ship.  Bull thought he was gonna be Riker, but instead, he's Lt Warf.  Or is it Worf? Idk.

Ch 3 Melba pg 31

Melba is in a seedy casino in Baltimore.  The place has a thick wrench of despiration and misogyny.  She's there to get a fake ID.  She's really Clarissa Mao, one of Jules Pierre Mao 's daughters.  She's heading to the ring.  the guy getti mg the IDs wants to renegotiate.  He knows she's gonna do something big at the ring.  He wants to be 50/50 partners.  

melba isn't interested.  She's got implants that make her super good at fighting.  She kills everyone in the room.  The problem is the comedown is real bad.  How t the he'll is she gonna get out of here alive with the comedown ?  She's throwing up.  She grabs the IDs and jumps out the window.  Nobody notices cause this is Baltimore.  People jumping out of Windows covered in blood is pretty standard around these part s.

Melba is determined to expose James.Holden and restore her family's good name.  I don't like her.odds.

Ch 4 Anna pg 41

Anna is a priest in Europa.  She's got a parishioner that's being abused by her husband.  Anna's talking to the husband and he's belligerent and unforgiving ng.  She says she's gonna call the.police.  He grabs her arm and she shoots her with a taser.  The cops come to get him.  

Anna goes home to her wife and 2 year old daughter and Anna starts to think about how if they don't go back to Earth soon they will never be able to.  There's a letter from the U.N. About Anna's next assignment.  Anna's wife says she should so the assignment but she's taking their daughter to Earth , to Moscow so she can grow.up on earth gravity.

Ch 5 Bull pg 50

They're calling the ship the behemoth and Bull is going around it with the.ship's XO Pa.  They're looking at the bulkhead where they're going to mount a railgun.  Bull says they're.gonna need.to add some more metal to reinforce the bulkhead pr.when the railgun fires it'll tear off.the.skin.  Pa isn't hearing it.  They've got schedules to keep and plans to execute and it's too late to make significant changes.

The ship used to be called the Navu and it would.have been a fine ship for a very long 1 g trip to way far out in space.  But it's not built to be a battle.ship.  Bull meets up with their head engineer Sam.  You know Sam, she and Naomi are friends.  Bull buys Sam a drink as he prepares to tell her about how Pa isn't willing to make the necessary changes.  Bull says he'll figure out something.

The worst part of being head security officer is that your.role is just internal.  You don't have any input on how the.ship interacts with the outside world.  Bull is alone in his office and even though he's not supposed to, he makes the changes to the plan Pa said no to.  He has put in the change request as tech support.  Bull tells Sam to get it done quick before Pa Notices.  Now they're talking about drug use on the ship.  Bull wants to put a.stop to.The drug use on the ship.  Specifically there was a key d got his knee busted up, he was clean, but Bull thinks the mech operator was on something.  Sam isn't giving up the name of the mech operator so Bull is gonna have to investigate by himself.

Ch 6 holden pg 60

Holden is worried about this job they took on Titania.  It's to escort a ship to the ring.  Way other side of the solar system.  Seems wierd.  They're waiting for.The customer.  They're twenty minutes late.  Holden calls them.  They call him and say they're canceling the contract.  Also suggesting they GTFO cause someone is heading their way.  Amos grabs his shotgun and throws a rifle to Holden.  They have no clue what's coming.  8 minutes before the ship can leave.  

A blonde earther lady shows up.  She's good looking and she smells nice.  She's serving him lawsuit papers.  The Martians want their ship back.  This sucks hard.   The Martians have also filed suit in Earth.  

There's a documentarian that is gonna get them out of their jam.  Freedom of press covers government leans on ships.  The problem is the documentarian also wants to interview the crew.  ALlso, the.story is.The ring.  Holden blames Miller.  He's not sure how, but somehow this is Miller's doing.

The documentary crew is an earth lady, a Martian camera man and a blind sound guy.

Ch 7 melba pg 71

melba is having a rough go of it on the ship she took up on.  Mostly cause the identity she took on claimed to know a ton of stuff she didn't.  She's planting a bomb.  

she's thinking about what it.might have been like to visit her dad in prison.  Her life on this ship is kinda like prison.  She has freedom, but she chooses to isolate.  The crew notices an d they hate her fo r it.  Her plan is to blow up this ship and then send out a fake video of Holden taking credit and declaring the ring was now controlled by the OPA.  The idea is that if Holden is besmirtched enough the evidence against her family would come into question.

Ch 8 Anna pg 81

Anna's on  U.N. Ship and they're on their way.  She's touring the ship.  She sends a message to her wife and daughter.  It's rough being on a ship at full G when you were on a moon for two years.  She's wondering how her wife and daughter will handle being in full earth gravity.  She goes to a VIP dinner.  Anna is a methodist.  

There's some drama between a rich lady named Tilly, the Secretary General s wife.  This goes on as she's an athiest talking with a bunch of religious people.  They start talking about the ring and what it is and what it means to society.  Tilly's like "it's wormhole duh" and the religious people are like "but how does that impact our vision of God" and there's some people Tilly makes fun of in orange robes from the people assending religion cause it sounds made up.  We just make up stuff now huh?

Things get super dramatic when a young fellow douses himself with alchohol and declares he's doing this for the Afghan people and lights himself on fire.  The drama doesn't last long becuase they're on a battle ship with robust fire supression systems.  He gets sprayed with white foam and in a second or two a bunch of navy folk drag him away.  Tilly says "maybe this trip won't be boring after all"

ch 9 bull pg 93

He's trying to find the drugs.  Bull knows that there's plenty of people doing plenty of bad stuff on the ship.  He can't stop it all, but he wants to keep it at a manageable level.  He's following a guy named Alexi who sells pixi dust.  He finds Alexi at  a water treatment plant.  He's busy working on a tank.  Bull goes in the back and finds a dufflebag in a locker room full of Pixi dust.  Alexi shows up and Bull punches him in the face.  The other two security people Bull brought with him ask if they're going to the brig.  Bull says " we got a brig?" Bull takes Alexi to an airlock.  He launches Alexi out of the airlock.  He puts the pixi dust in the airlock and tells the crowd that if any other pixi dust joins it, that would be cool.

Bull is meeting with Captain Ashford.  Ashford is pacing back and forth.  Ashford declares that this is unacceptable.  He's upset that Bull killed a member of his crew without due process.  Ashford says Bull will be taken back to Tyco and tried for murder.  Bull's argument is we don't have that kinda law and order here  because it's not a space station.  this is a battle ship.  We need military order.

Ashford says from here on out, if anyone needs to go out an airlock, it's him that should be pushing the button.

ch 10 Holden pg 102

Things are awkward with the documentary film crew.  The documentary crew is only allowed access to the galley and quarters.  Holden and crew have been hiding in ops or engineering or the machine shop.  They have dinner and it's kward.  they've all got skeletons in their closets and they aren't real big on shari mg with a documentary crew.  As they're talking about not wanting to talk about stuff Holden realizes he doesn't know much of the things the crew doesn't want to talk about.  Since Holden is the captain, it's now his job to be sooooo interesting that the documentary crew leaves the rest of the Rico's crew alone.  Miller shows up and tells Holden about how clearing a room is important.  For the next week's Holden does a lot of talking to the crew.  Amos swears a lot so none of the footage they get of him is useful.  

a week out from the ring they catch up to the behemoth.  Amos notices how many weapons they've strapped on.  The Roci does some analysis on the behemoth and figures if it ever really fired.half.those guns, it would tear itself apart.

Monica, the head documentary crew person, asks Holden how he liked working for.the.OPA Holden does that thing where you talk a lot about something else.so you don't have to answer the question.

Ch 11 melba

Melba's doing a better job with the crew.  Like how she noticed that they have a wierd difference in their drive signature now.  This is mainly as a noob she's paying attention to the details in a way that an experienced person doesn't cause they're used to the same ole same ole and skipping what they consider to be unimportant steps.

They're at the ring and there's a lot of growing fear.  Melba is super psyched about taking down James Holden.  If she can take him down, she can go back to her old life as Clarissa Mao.  There's fun talk about Eros.  They all got people that were on Eros when it happened.  Are the souls of their loved ones that were on Eros still in the ring?

Melba gets a call from Ren.  They look at some air filter logs.  Ren has found what looks like explosive residue.  Melba's real worried that Ren has found her bomb and she's gonna have to kill him.  She uses her super powers to kill him and hide the body.

ch 12 Anna

Anna is bored by the prayer meeting.  She's talking to her friend Tilly about how big her daughter is getting and how things are rough for her adjusting to earth.  She's on growth hormone drugs.  Tilly hasn't heard from her rich and powerful husband for a week.  Anna's a little annoyed that nobody on the ship is talking about what the ring means about God.  Do the creators of the promolecule believe in God?  

ALARM: All hands to action stations.  Probably doesn't apply to Anna, she doesn't know what an action station is.

The opulance of this place is disgusting.  They have real milk.  There's an annoying guy from Minnesota who's a methodist and wants all the world's questions answered by a priest.  He calls Martian's dusters.  We go on alert whenever we're near dusters.  I gotta get some decorative wood on the trim of my skylights.  Sunday at 10 am she's gonna hold a methodist service.  There's a pretty girl across the room pretty much sleeping on the table, I'm pretty sure it's Melba.  We got coliding viewpoints YO!!1!!

ch 13 Bull

the dusters have been sending probes into the ring.  The main thing they've discovered is that if you send something in too fast it basically stops suddenly.  The definition of too fast is more than 600 meters per second.  Slower than that and there's no perceivable difference when it gets to the ring.  They're getting this brief from a guy named Chan.  Interesting stuff.

Then some bullshit goes down.  Someone has figured out that Sam has been reinforcing the ship's weak points near guns and Pa wants to confine Sam to quarters.  Bull is like "no, that's me, I requested those tech support items."  But Pa's being a dick about it.  Ashford and Pa suck.  Granted, the reason they suck is that Bull killed someone without talking to them about it and they're being real dicks about it.  Bull takes Sam to the security office.

Bull and JoJo talk about Sam's sitution.  They're taking her to quarters and revoking her access.  They both know it's bullshit and they hate it, but it's an order so they're doing it.  Politically there seems to be a lot of this sort of thing in this series.  You don't go after the person that wronged you, you go after someone they care about to punish them.  

Bull buys a four pack of beer and brings it to Sam as a peace offering.  It kinda works.  Bull gets a call telling him the earth destroyer suba just got blowed up.

ch 14 Melba

She's real surprised nobody's pissed off about Ren's disappearance and blamingit on the ring.  He's just disappeared and everyone's just sorta "it happens" and the ring makes things wierd and they move on with their lives.  Seems like she feels real bad about it.  It's like she's sad that no one else is gonna punish her so maybe she'll just punish herself.  She's sort of reliving the whole sorted affair again.

The navy crew likes it when we're thrusting.  Good hot food gets cooked good when you got thrust gravity.  A little more talk about Ren.  Melba's all in her head with killing Ren.  Anna (remember her from chapter 12?) comes and talks to her.  Melba's kinda freaking out for a minute cause she think's Anna knows she killed Ren.  Then she's like, nah, she don't know nothin.  She's just trying to be helpful.

she's psyched about her plan to blow up a ship and blame it on holden

ch 15 bull

Bull is watching the video of the ship blow up.  They were able to dump the core.  There are survivors.  Bull asks Serge how much space they've got for survivors.  Serge says, all of it.  They've got enough supplies for a city.  They watch the video Melba planted to make it look like Holden blew up that ship.  Some OPA people are saying "it's about time"

Bull runs to captain Ashford and demands that they fire on the Roci.  Pa agrees.  Eventually they talk Ashford into it.  They fire, it doesn't go well.  They go get Sam to fix it.

ch 16 holden

They see the message that everyone else is seeing.  They can't stop it.  They don't have control of their communications.  They have control of everything else.  They turn off the comms to stop the message.  They don't appear to have control of their weapons either.  They don't shut those down, though they probably should.

They head toward the ring to get away from the missle fired by the Behemoth.  They almost crash into a martian ship.  They try to run around the martian ship to put it between them and the missle.  All the martian ships have targetted them, but none of them have fired.  The missle from the behemouth is still after them.  Holden has a plan, head toward the ring as fast as possible.  Then flip and decelerate so they're going slower than the rate the Martian probe had discover was safe.  The ship tells Holden there's a 30% chance someone dies during this.  But the missle would be 100% so it's worth the risk.  Miller shows up.  Holden can see inside the ring, they were only 10 meters away from the missle.  It's being dragged away by whatever is in charge here.

ch 17 Bull

It's been 30 hours since they shot the missle and it turned off all their stuff.  All the lights are on now.  Sam calls Bull to come down to the machine shops and bring a gun.  Being tired in 0 G is a little wierd.  On earth, if you're tired, you feel it in your joints.  Not out in space though.  Gives you the false feeling that you're not as tired as you really are.  A young belter named Gareth has decided this work is beneath him.  So he's not gonna do any more conduit work.  Bull says fine, go to bed, I'll do it.  We'll get an earth or marsh ship to take you back to Ceres.  This shames Gareth into doing it.  

The captian tells the whole ship they're going after holden.  bull tries tto talk the captain ouit of this idea, it does not go well.  He tries to have teh same conversation with Pa and it also doesn't go well.  Bull suggests to Pa that she should be in charge.  Pa specifically tells bull not to take any action against the captain.

ch 18 anna

she's giving her church service to 18 relatively oung miliatry folks.  They seem to want something from her that they're not saying and she's not good at guessing.  Eventually she says that she's scared.  And everyone agrees and the flood gates open a bit with how scared everyone is.  Anna specifically stops Matt to ask about Melba.  Anna's scared for her and she's gonna seek her out to see what the deal is.

Anna goes to talk to her rich friendin the bar.  Fun joke about vile liquids being sucked out of tubes.  The guy who's kinda in charge of allt he religious folks asks Anna to sign a petition requesting that the ship go into the ring with all of them and also Mars should come to.  Anna's hopeful that if this works it will take what's suddenly turned into a military situation and turn it back into a united exploration.

ch 19 Melba

Melba's bummed that HOlden isn't dead.  Her dad always liked to say, if the other man is dead, yours is the only story to be told.  If Holden is alive and they dig through the evidence, they're gonna figure out that the bomb and the message weren't holden and they're gonna keep loooking and figure out that it was Melba.

A girl comes to Melba's room in a panic cause they want her to go to the Thomas Prince, one of the ships that's going through the ring.  Melba's like, chill, you dont' have to, I'll take your place.  She does the paper work and in 3 hours she'll be expected on the Thomas Prince.  So she's gotta do something about Ren's body.  She gets a ton of tools and opens the locker Ren's body is in.  It takes her a couple hours to get him out.  She puts him into a combination locked vacumme sealed tool case.  She sobs while she finishes cleaing up and geting ready to go.  She brings the lock box with Ren inside with her.  Thirty people going over to the Thomas Prince.  She's looking around at them suspiciously and wondering what horrible secrets they have that made them want to do this.

No matter what happens over there, she has to destroy Holden.  Maybe she can get a card that would get her on a shuttle.  In case of emergency, just get back to your quarters and get belted in.  Now on the ship, Melba feels all alone.  She sees Tilly and the reminder of her old rich person's life makes her feel a little scared cause she's Clarissa Mao.  Some of these rich civilians might recognize her.  Is she gonna have to kill them too?  Well, she came to improvize, start improvizing.

ch 20 Holden

The documentary team is calling the inside of the ring the slow zone.  Naomi says that's a dumb name.  She like's Alex's name.  The dandelon.  They're sticking with the slow zone.  They're calling the place that fast things get sucked toward, the station.  They assume something is inside controlling the ring.  Silvery blue glowing ball.  In the TV show, the protomolecule is always glowing blue.  In the book, it's always described as brown sludge until now.  I wonder if they had at least read this far and were like "That's more like it.  We're always gonna have the protomolecule glowing blue."  Their plan now is to try to get full control of the ship again.  It's not going well.  Every time they try, they lose control again.  

Amos barges in and hells out "MOTHER FUCKER!!!"  He found the thing that's been controlling the ship in the head.  So they know it was one of the documentary people.  Monica's like "hey" all scared cause it's a scary situation.  She's in charge and "they" definitely placed this thing.  Holden's like "who did it" and then he's like "or, I can just space all four of you."  Cohen, the blind sound guy says "shit, I got paid to put that on the ship.  I had no idea what it would do."  Amos says "you fucker" and it's in that way that Holden knows he's not angry anymore, he's coldly decided to kill someone.  Some young woman paid Cohen to put the thing on the ship.   This is before any of this documentary stuff came to be.  So whoever it is set this whole thing up.  Cohen makes a model of the girl that paid him allthe money.  Holden says Julie Mao.  He's pretty close.  It's fun to know what's going on from other viewpoints when Holden is a little clueless.  

Holden decides he has to go to the station.  Everything from the last year with Miller talking to him has lead him here.  Into the ring.  Into the station.  He's gotta go.  Naomi tries to talk him out of it.  Holden's like "you're the captain now"

ch 21 Bull

things kinda suck in the behemoth.  They are mostly working on repairs and mars and earth are heading towards the rivalry getting ready to go all gun blazing.  Captain Ashford is wondering what kind of !an to man combat capabilities they have.  Almost none.  Mars and earth have people in armored battle suits.  The behemoth has plumbers with guns.  Bull has an idea.  He calls Naomi over on the rivalry and offers safe passage for the camera crew.  She doesn't hate the idea.

Ch 22 Holden 226

Holden is slowly drifting toward the alien sphere they're calling stati on.  Naomi calls to tell him she's giving the camera crew to the behemoth.  Also, Martian marines are headed his way.  

Holden makes it inside station and is talking to Miller and it's all very cryptic.  He says he could stop the Martian marines but there would be consequences.  the marines make it to Holden and shoot immediately.  Holden isn't dead cause station stopped the bullets.  It then creates some insect monsters to attack the marines.  A marine fires a grenade and blows up one of them.  The marines run away.  Miller says this is bad.  The speed of that grenade has just become the New limit.  A lot of people are going to die when their ships instantly slow to that speed.

she 23 Melba 

Melba having a bad drea m.  She should have stayed asleep cause she wakes up and sees the nightmare that the ship had become.  The sudden deceleration has had a very negative effect.  Melba is lucky she was strapped in cause everything that wasn't is floating about in pieces because it hit whatever wall was in front of it at high speed.  Most people are dead.  They're sticking bodies. To walks with dealing foam.  Melba ends up in charge of fixing their air thing.  But halfway through doing that she wakes n the chaos she.might be able to get all sorts of useful stuff to kill holden.  So.She bails to do that.

Ch 24 anna

Anna is also having a bad time of the sudden deceleration.  She's worse of than Melba cause her arms got free of the crash  couch and her shoulders got dislocated.  She's wandering around witnessing the carnage.  She finds Tilly, who shoots her.up.with.pain relievers.  They're trying to help where they can.  Somehow they get to talking about Julie Mao and Tilly is.like, no that's not Julie, its.her sister Clarrisa that's on this ship.  Anna starts to freak out and is all "OMG WE GOTTA FIND HER AND STOP HER!!!!"

Ch 25 holden

Holden is trying to radio the ricante.  It doesn't work.  He's talking to Miller about it and Miller says the station is on lockdown and he needs Holden's help to unlock it.  They go into a room with some of the insectoidal roboty things.  There's a big hexagonal column and Miller tells Holden to touch it.  He goes on a bit of a spiritual journey where he's floating through the cosmos and then he sees a bunch of stars explode and what not and then he ends up back in his body.  It feels way too small after that.  He talks to Miller who says he's better connected to the station now.  He says that what Holden saw with the exploding stars is what happened to the "people" that last fought with whoever created the protomolecule. Holden is all "they can't still do that can they?" At which point Miller disappears because the Martian marines are there to arrest Holden .

Ch 26 bull

 things are not as bad on the behemoth because they were already going kinda slow.  You got a third in crash couches, they're fine.  A third at their stations who are mostly ok.  Then you got the third that was walking around or drinking coffee and they're in dire straights.  Bull is one of those.  He can't feel much below his nipples.  The doctor suggests a medical coma.  The problem with that is unless they can get up to 1/3 G everyone with internal bleeding is gonna die.from it.  The hu man body was developed in gravity and that's where it works best.  Things that are minor with gravity are a death sentence in zero G.  Pa and captain Ashford and Sam are all alive.  

Bull has one word for their next action.  Unity.  Everyone else is like, duh, but how?  He's got an idea.  All these injured people need gravity to heal.  Spin up the drum to create the gravity they all need so desperately and they will all come to the behemoth.

Ch 27 melba

melba got that neck she was.talking about and is making her way toward the roci, ship by ship jumping between them with her mag boots.  All the ships have been disabled and pulled to the station.  So it only takes a few hours to make her way to the Roci.  She gets inside easily and decides to make her way to the reactor to blow it.up.  Minor problem, she runs into Naomi and they fight.  At one point it seems.like Melbas gonna be able to explode the core, but then Naomi figures out a way to eject it.  Now they're fighting for reelz and Melba is set on killing Naomi.  This is an accomplishable goal, because Melba has a mech suit and Naomi does not.  It looks like Melba is going to achieve that goal until she is shocked and her suit is disabled and Naomi gets away.  Who is Naomi's savior?  It's ANNA!!!!

I'll be gone in the night part 1 ch 1 through 13

This book is about a serial rapist and murderer.  It's unpleasant.  Reading this book report will likely be unpleasant.  Rape and murder are bad and it's a real bummer to read about someone getting away with repeated violent crime.

ch 1 Irvine 1981

The victim's name is Manuella. She was murdered. She's a german imigrant who act's like a steriotypical german person.   Overly critical and not a very warm person.  She has dinner with her parents every night.  Her husband David was in the hospital the night she was murdered.  Initially the cops thought he might have hired someone to have her killed.  Cause that's what it is a lot of the time.  But Criminalogist Jim White knew he didn't do it.  He processed the scene.  He's processed lots of scenes like this.

ch 2 Dana Point 1980

The victim's here are Patty and Keith.  They were discovered by Patty's dad roger.  They were in their bed under the covers.  It was obvious they were dead.  The cops don't find any useful clues.  Once again Jim White is involved in the scene processing.  I suppose I shouldn't say once again as this actually happed first.  There was one thing that united the murders.  Wooden matches were found at both scenes.  None of the victims smoked.  The idea is the murderer smokes and uses wooden matches to light his cigarettes.

ch 3 hollywood 2009

Our narrator is at a hollywood movie permier.  She hears about a double murder on the internet.  They have the suspect in custody.  His anme is Joseph henery burgess.  She thinks he might be the golden state killer.  She calls a guy from the LA times to tell him about it.  She understands that being "stuck" at a fancy LA movie premier isn't really relatable.  Her husband is an actor.  My first thought " must be nice."  she leaves early to go home and look into the killer more.

ch 4 oak park

Thus in oak park Illinois.  A suburb of cgivago with lots of Irish Catholic.  Lots of stuff about Michelle's upbringing and the neighbor murder that forever has her fascinated by unsolved murders.  A guy she went to grade school with was in the group of kids that found the body.  Creepy tall Indian guy is what they came up with for a suspect.  But the cops didn't take them seriously and the case is unsolved.  There's lots of unsolved cases.  If a person kills a stranger for no good reason and no one is there to see it, nor a lot to go on.

CH 5 Sacramento 1976 1977

For these two years Sarcramento was a nonstop nightmare.  Over twenty times the East Area Rapist broke into a married couples house with a gun, made the wife tie up.the husband, then tied up and raped her.  Gun sales went through the roof, everyone bought flood lights for their yards.  To our knowledge, nothing helped as the EAR Wasn't caught or stopped in any of his attempts.  

CH 6 visalia

From 73 to 75 Vasalia had a prowler/Robert they called the ransacker.  There are some that think this person  is the EAR/GSR.  Others, not so much.

CH 7 Orange County 1996

1996 is when real good DNA processing and cataloging made it to California.  They had 2500 or so cold cases with DNA evidence hanging out from way back in the day.  With the ability to process that evidence and compare the DNA to known criminals they were able to solve over 1500 of those.  Where this is pertinent to the GSK is that three cases were linked by his DNA.  Including the one in the next chapter

ch 8 Irvine 1986

The victim is a single woman named Janelle.  She had a real bad upbringing and as an adult had a plethora of male sexual partners without a lot of meaningful relationships.  What that meant to the cops was that therewere lots of suspects.  She was found in the in a hous that was for sale or empty or something cause a realter found the body.  Blunt force trama.  Nobody was arrested.  Then years later all suspicion of the possible suspects was removed when DNA evidence cleared them but linked the murder to three others.

ch 9 Venture 1980

Another double murder of a married couple.  Like a lot of these the ferocity and brutality of the crime makes the cops think it's somoen close to the couple that was somehow enranged by something they did and then rape and murder followed.  But this is a book about a serial killer.  Someone that just liked to kill.  He didn't know the couple except for that he somehow chose them for this.  So the cops investigate a lot of people connected to the couple, they had a suspect that went to trial mostly on the testimony of the suspect's priest who testified that the suspect confessed to him.  Turns out, the priest had done this a bunch in the past, the suspect's lawyer found out about it and the case fell apart.  

ch 10 goleta 1979

This is near Santa Barbara.  This is where the east side rapist who used to be "just" a ransacker murders for the first time.  He stabbed a dog, they are able to get the dog to a pet ER and with 70 stitches the dog is saved.  They didn't know it was the GSK.  They thought the dog stumbled and cut itself on something sharp.  The GSK tried to kill for the first time and it didn't work out.  He was oveheard trying to psyche himself up.  Saying "I'm gonna kill em" with grim determination.  The girlfriend was able to break break her bonds and run away screaming.  Neighbors heard and GSK was scared away.  He did murder in December of 1979.  It wasn't the efficient kills we've read about in his later years.  The husband started to run away and GSK shot him three times and shot the wife once.  They found his shoe prints all over the neighborhood in people's back yards.  He punched a lady's poodle in the eye.

CH 11 Goleta 1981

This chapter is all about Cheri and the struggles she's having with her daughter Debi.  Debi has run away from home.  She calls to tell her mom she needs to come home to get her swimsuit.  Her mom says no, Debi stays away.  Cheri had her no against  off again boyfriend over and the GDK kills them.  The others killed around this time and location are all unmarried couples.  Some thought the.killer was a religious nut.  This chapter has.lots of.pictures and notes and what not.

CH 12 orange county 2000

Larry Pool is a cop.  He's digging into these old GSK cold cases.  Santa Barbara doesn't have access to the DNA stuff that's linked the murders from 79 to 86 and this is a bummer cause Santa Barbara is where Larry is focussing.  His compatriates think it's a little silly.  SErial killers don't stop.  So this guy who's last known murder was 1986 is either dead or in jail.  But he's still digging into it.  Expecially the earliest murders in Santa Barbara in 1979.  This is back when the GSK didn't really know what he was doing and almost got caught a couple times.  Larry's thinking maybe he can dig into those a little more and find something useful.

ch 13 Contra Costa, 1997

Paul Holes is a young CSI guy.  John Murdock is an old CSI guy.  Nearing retirement, ro maybe already retired?  Anyway, Paul and John are going to a CSI guy conference together and Paul talks about how he's seen all these boxes marked EAR.  So he asks John about them and gets the whole horrifying story of the East Area Rapist.  Paul gets into the DNA stuff and eventaully by 2001 he's able to compare their DNA with Orange County's DNA and conclusively proove that the East Area Rapist is the Golden State Killer.  It was in all the papers.  Larry Pool is kinda pissed off about this.  He knew the EAR was still out there doing bad stuff and everyone else told him not to bother with it.

ABC murders ch 18 through 35

ch 18 poroit gives a speach

Frederick Clarke wants to form a special legion of people connected to the ABC murders to bring ABC down. He can pay for everyone to be involved with his dead brother's money.  They all get together at Poirot's place and they talk about what they can do before the next murder letter comes.  They've all got little things to try in their home towns to try and wring more information out of the other friends and family.  They talk about how all the post marks on the letters are London and that means ABC is likely a Londoner.  Frederick Clarke has the idea to put an advert in the paper trying to get ABC to respond.  Poirot doesn't think much will come of it.  But they've all got something to occupy their minds until the next letter comes.

ch 19 by way of sweden

The special legion has left and Poirot and Hastings get to talking.  Poirot was exited how quickly Megan Barnanrd pointed out that all of Poirot's talk was just talk.  Hastings' is all "so you don't believe what you said" and Poirot is like "Kinda, but really I just wanna get the converstion started.  People might reveal the things that they currently don't know they know in the midst of that conversation"  They talk about the relationships that seem to be forming.  How Thora Hastings is astonishingly beautiful.  Then she comes in to explain that she didn't quit her job working in the late MR. Clarke's home, she was fired by his wife, who is very bad off and nearly toward the end of her life.  

ch 20 Lady Clarke

They go down to talk to Lady Clarke.  She talks a lot about how she never liked Thora Hastings and got rid of her ASAP.  She talks about how Thora claimed no one came to the house that day but Lady Clarke clearly remembers Thora talking to a regular looking man the day Car was murdered.  They go back to london and they're talking about how there's no way that Thora could be in league with ABC.  The boyfirned of the murdered girl  comes to talk to Poirot.  He's had a reoccuring dream.  He's strangling his girlfriend with a belt and then when the deed is done he looks at her again and it's her sister.  He thinks maybe he actually killed his girlfriend and had a psychotic break and can't remember it.  The fourth letter comes.  The next murder will be in Doncaster on September 11th.

ch 21 descriptoin of a murderer

Chrome comes to get the letter to take it to the authorities.  Frederick Clarke tells him of their legion.  Chrome mentiones how little resources they have.  Clarke counters that they've got an Axe to grind and that's not nothing.  Poirot mentions to Thora Hastings that Lady Clarke saw her the day of the murder with a man.  She remembers now, it was a man selling stockings.  Stockings, Poirot remembers that the Old lady that was murdered's sister bought stockings for her the day of the murder.  And it was a door to door salesman.  Poirot thinks that this stocking salesman is ABC.

ch 22 not from captain hastings personal nerrative

Our murderer, Mr. Cust is talking to a lady about the trip he's goin on .  he seems quite anxious.  Possivly sick and the lady suggests he might not go on the trio.  He says he must, for the good of the business.  Once one starts in on business, one must contue on until the job was done.  We know he's going to Doncaster.  He says he's going somewhere else.  Somewhere not close to Doncaster.  Last time he told her a place that was close to where the murder was.  He recognizes this as a mistake, hence the other location.  She talks about how the race at Doncaster is going to be bigger than ever and the city will be swarming with police due to the cerial ciller saying that's where the next murder will be.

She goes to talk to some toher lady.  There's an itch of an idea that Mr. Cust might be ABC.  Quickly ignored as she and this other lady talk about other things.  But in their subconsious minds...

 

ch 23 sept 11 doncaster

The special legion is at the Doncaster track (its a horse race) doing their duty to catch ABC in the act.  Thora Grey is really beating herself up about not getting a better.look at him when he was trying to sell stockings at Car's place the day he was murdered.  Poirot is confident, if she sees him, she will recognize him.  They are going to split up and look around.  It us important that eaxh lady muat be accomoanied by a man.  Mr Clark pulls Poirot aside to once again defend Thorax Grey's honor.  Just because Mrs Clark fired her doesn't mean there's anything wrong with her.  Poirot talks to Hastings about how ABC's luck must be running out.  Three murders with no evidence, good luck.  But ABC probably doesn't see it that way.  He just think a he's very clever.  Hastings suggests he might pair with Tjora Grey.  Poirot says he should pair with Mary Drower because her name starts with a D.

CH 24 not from Mr hastings personal narrative.

Mr Led better is at the movies.  He likes it a lot as the lead actress in the film is, in his opinion, the best actress in the world.  Someone gets up in front of him and blocks his view as they go by.  He finds this very distasteful.  The movie is almost over .  just wait til the end.  The movie is now really over and he is leaving.  He notices a man in the row in front of him is asleep.  Unimaginable with such a good film.  As he's leaving someone in the row trying to pass the man realizes he's dead.  It must be ABC.

CH 25 Not from the personal narrative of Mr hastings

ABC is enjoying the evening as he walks from the movies to his hotel room.  In his room he realizes there's a spot of blood on his sleeve.  He anxiously tries to clean it, there's a knock on his door.  Hot water for washing.  He says to.go away, he already.cleaned up with cold water.  Je decides it's time to head to the train station.

CH 26 Not from the personal narrative of Mr hastings

Inspector Chrome is interviewing witnesses.  Mr Ledbetter is not useful.  There's also some sort of military guy and he also doesn't really give any useful information.

ch 27 the doncaster murder

The victime this time is named George Earlsfield.  Curious, not a D.  They interview a guy with a weak heart.  His name is Downes.  He was sitting only two seats away from the victim and had a similar build and was wearing the same kind of scarf.  Poiroit thinks maybe he was the intended victim and George Earlsfield was killed mistakenly.  Remember back in chapter 25 when ABC was washing the blood off his sleeve and the lady knocks on his door to offer him hot water?  Well, she saw the water was red and now she's here telling the police about it.  They go to the hotel and read how ABC signed the guest book and they coulnt' quite make it out, it was AB Cash or case.  They go to  ABC's room and find a bunch of boxes with stockings in them.

28 Not from captain hastings personal narrative

Tom Harrtigan comes to talk to the cops.  He knows a lady that rents a room to a Mr. AB Cust.  Tom suspects him becuase the lady told Tom that Mr. Cust was at the site of the previous murder and he came home the day of the Doncaster murder even though he claimed to be going to cheltenham.  And he read int he papper they were looking for an AB Case/Cash and thought AB Cust is pretty close.  Chrome assigned some cops to keep an eye on ABC. 

The land lady gets a call, it's for Mr. Cust.  He claims it was his sister, they've had a boy and he's going to leave to go see them.  

29 At Scotland Yard

The cops are all felling pretty good about their investigation of ABC.  They found all sorts of evidence at his place.  Even the knife from his most recent murder.  Now they just have to find ABC.

30 Not from captain Hastings narrative

ABC is out of money, he doesn't know what he's gonna do next.  It's hard to think straight when you haven't eaten in a while.  Je sees a police station and decides to go inside.  He's so weak he just falls over.

31 Hercule Poirot asks questions

They have ABC and he is pleading not guilty.  He claims he didn't do any of the murders.  They have him on the Doncaster murder, but all the evidence for the other murders is circumstantial.  He even has an alibi for the Bexhill murder.  A man in the town 14 miles away says he was drinking with ABC until after midnight.  Lots of talking between Hastings and Poirot.  Poirot thinks he might have a brilliant thought.  They gotta get the special legion together to ask some questions and then Poirot will speak to ABC and figure the truth of the matter.

32 and catch a fox

They meet with the special legion in Bexhill.  He asks each person in the group one seemingly unimportant question.  He loudly declares they must go to Eastbourne.  But then in private with Hastings he says, back to London.

33 Alexander Bonaparte Cust

Poiroit talks to ABC.  About his upbringing, his time int he war and his time after the war.  Poirot points out all the evidence, ABC talksa bout how he has an alibi for one of the murders.  ABC says he was at those placea bwcause he was under orders from his job to be there.  Poirot tells him tjat they compared the lettees to his tyoewritwr and deteremined that he wrote thisw letters with that typewriter.  Then at the end  Poirot is like "you know you did the murders right?" and ABC is like "yeah, I do" and Poirot is like "but you don't know why" and ABC is all "no, I don't"  It's pretty cool

34 Poirot explains

Poirot is doubtful that ABC is truly the murderer.  Especially Betty B.  She was strangled by her own belt.  She must have trusted and liked the murderer to gibe them her belt right kill her with it.  Poirot says it couldn't have been ABC because women are not interested in him.  As he goes along he says Mr. Clark is the true murderer.  His true goal was to kill his brother and inherit his money.  The idea sprung from him to make it.look like a cereal killer was at work using the alphabet as a device because his brothers name starts with a c and he lived in a town starting with a c.  He first needed a patsy.  He found ABC and cooked up the idea to offer him a job to have him go to the places Mr. Clark Will do the murders.  Mr Clark says that's ridiculous.  Then Poirot talks about the pile of evidence he UA's already provided to the police.  Mr. Clark pulls out a gun.  It doesn't do him any good.  Poirot had a nimble fingered associate steal his gun, take out all the bullets and put the empty gun back in his pocket.

CH 35 finale

The fun thing in this chapter is Poirot confessing that he made up some evidence when he was trying to get Mr. Clark to confess.  Thorax Grey is all offended that she was used as a pawn and I guess Betty's sister and ex boyfriend are dating now.