Follow the Clues: Present Your Evidence

Greetings, Vintage Mystery Challengers! Well, we're in the final days (hours) of 2017 and challenges are coming to a close. It's time to set the stage for wrap-up posts, prize drawings, and winners. The Follow the Clues Mystery Challenge requires you to present your evidence trail to the court. Below (in bold), you will find the qualifications for prizes from the original challenge post:

Prizes!
~All challengers who complete their level with readily explained clues will be eligible for an end-of-year prize drawing.

Bloggers: please put together a wrap-up post that details your Clue Trail and reminds us of your initial commitment and link it up below.
Non-Bloggers may give their Clue Trail in a comment below.

The link will be open through January 8, 2019 and the drawing will take place as soon as possible thereafter.

December Follow the Clues Reviews

November Follow the Clues Reviews

October Follow the Clues Reviews

September Follow the Clues Reviews

August Follow the Clues Reviews

July Follow the Clues Reviews

 

 

June Follow the Clues Reviews

May Follow the Clues Reviews

April Follow the Clues Reviews

March Follow the Clues Reviews

February Follow the Clues Reviews

2017 Follow the Clues Winners!

 It's time to find out our winners for the inaugural Follow the Clues Mystery Challenge. Using my trusty Custom Random Number Generator, I'll plug in the parameters for all our participants. A whir here, a clank there (and a good kick or two--I think it's getting tired with all the winners tonight...) and it tells me that our random winner is...

JJ @ the Invisible Event

Congratulations, JJ (impressive stats and graphing on your wrap-up post!)

And...our overall winner with a chain of evidence with 168 links (!) is....

Kate @ Cross Examining Crime

Wow. With that kind of evidence, I'm sure Kate could put away the vilest criminal for several life-times! What an impressive chain.

Thanks for playing along with this one. And good luck to the detectives hunting for evidence chains in the New Year. I will contact JJ & Kate about prizes ASAP.

January 2018 Follow the Clues Reviews

Follow the Clues: Present Your Evidence Trail

Greetings, Vintage Mystery Challengers! Well, we're in the final days (hours) of 2017 and challenges are coming to a close. It's time to set the stage for wrap-up posts, prize drawings, and winners. The Follow the Clues Mystery Challenge requires you to present your evidence trail to the court. Below (in bold), you will find the qualifications for prizes from the original challenge post:

Prizes!
~All challengers who complete their level with readily explained clues will be eligible for an end-of-year prize drawing.
~Bonus prize for the challenger who provides the longest chain of evidence (most books read in a single trail of clues). In case of a tie, I will draw a winner from those who have completed the same amount.

Bloggers: please put together a wrap-up post that details your Clue Trail and reminds us of your initial commitment and link it up below.
Non-Bloggers may give their Clue Trail in a comment below.

The link will be open through January 9, 2018 and the drawing will take place as soon as possible thereafter.

Here is my Clue Trail as an example. I originally signed up for the Misdemeanor Level:

1. Death at Swaythling Court by J. J. Connington (1/4/17) [revolver on cover--which leads me to...]
2. Death of a Racehorse by John Creasey (1/7/17) [do those bullets on the cover match the gun in question? And my next clue...]
3. The 24th Horse by Hugh Pentecost (1/13/17) [Now horses seem to be theme. This takes place at a horse show in New York City. And this book leads me to...]
4. Death Takes a Bow by Frances & Richard Lockridge (2/5/17) [With more mysterious goings-on in New York City...with Mr. & Mrs. North.]
5. Deception Island by M. K. Lorens (2/13/17) [In the Lockridge book, the victim is a writer. Here, the amateur sleuth is a writer. Connection = writers]
6. Episode of the Wandering Knife by Mary Roberts Rinehart (2/17/17) [A man on the cover of Deception Island is holding a knife. A woman on the Rinehart book is holding a knife. Connection = knife]
7. The Body Missed the Boat by Jack Iams (3/6/17) [Rinehart book was a Dell mapback. That map led me to this book which is also a Dell mapback.]
8. Murder at Government House by Elspeth Huxley (3/14/17) [Iams book was set in Africa. This book is also set in Africa.]

Misdemeanor!

9. Dread & Water by Douglas Clark (3/15/17) [Two important scenes in the Huxley book involve mountainsides. All of the deaths in the Clark book occur while mountain-climbing]
10. Silence Observed by Michael Innes (3/28/17) [Both Clark & Innes have upper-level policemen investigating the crimes] 

Felony!

11. Nun Plussed by Monica Quill (3/30/17) [A rare/used book man is one of the victims in the Innes book; a rare/used book man is the initial suspect in the Quill book]
12. A Grave Case of Murder by Roger Bax (4/10/17) [A supposed marriage is involved in each book]

Capital Offense! 

13. Murder Comes First by Frances & Richard Lockridge (4/11/17) [Both books have very sympathetic detectives--in the Bax book, sympathy with the suspects, and in the Lockridge book sympathy with the amateur detectives.] 
14. Stroke of Death by Josephine Bell (4/12/17)  [Murder for Money]
15. Coffin's Dark Number by Gwendoline Butler (4/16/17) [Both are heavily psychological character studies--and very squalid, depressing character studies too]

 

December Follow the Clues Reviews

Follow the Clues Mystery Challenge

Last year I introduced the Follow the Clues Mystery Challenge because I wanted to develop another mystery challenge that would be more all-encompassing. Unlike the variations of my yearly Vintage Mystery Challenge, this mystery challenge has no publication date limits. If it's a mystery--it counts and it does not matter when it was published. Participation seemed to me to be a bit spotty, but I ran a poll and had four folks who said they'd like to do another round.I initially thought I might try to change things up a bit, but I haven't had any bursts of inspiration. So, let's try this again...

Your goal? Is still to follow a set of clues furnished by the mystery books you read to create a body of evidence to support a book court case. Each book clue should lead you to your next read. The connection can be anything at all from author names to motive for murder to type of mystery (police, procedural, espionage, romantic thriller, etc.) to an item on the cover, but you must be able to make your case to the jury on your detective logic. I would prefer that you not read eight books from the same author and use the author/series/character/ etc. as the clue link. An example: If the first book I read is by Agatha Christie, then the next book could be by Elizabeth Daly, who has often been referred to as the "American Christie." If the Daly book is Arrow Pointing Nowhere, then my next book could be The House of the Arrow by A.E.W. Mason....and so on.

If you have doubts about whether your clue is convincing OR you need any clarification about the challenge at all, you may approach the bench with questions (phryne1969 AT gmail DOT com).


There are several levels of participation:
Infraction -- six books read in a single chain of evidence
Misdemeanor -- eight books read in a single chain of evidence
Felony -- ten books read in a single chain of evidence
Capital Offense -- twelve books in a single chain of evidence

Here are the rules:

~Challenge runs from January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2018. All books should be read during this time period. Sign up any time between now and November 1, 2018.  If you have a blog, please post about the challenge. Then sign up via the linky below. And please make the url link to your Challenge post and not your home page. (Links that do not follow this rule will be removed.) If you do not have a blog, links to an online list (Goodreads, Library Thing, etc.) devoted to this challenge are also acceptable OR you may comment below to indicate your sign up.
 
~All books must be mysteries. Humor, romance, supernatural elements (etc) are welcome, but the books should be mysteries/crime/detective novels first.

~Choose a level of participation. A full body of evidence must be read at the chosen level for a completed challenge and to be eligible for the end-of-year prize drawing.

~For this year's challenge, you start your chain after signing up. The idea is to let your books lead to one another, not to read several books and then look back for connections.
 
~You are welcome to level up if you find that your evidence trail leads you to suspect a more serious crime. But no reduced sentences will be accepted (no leveling down).
 
~A wrap-up post/comment/email will be requested that should include explanations of the clue links.
 
~Reviews are not mandatory, but a monthly link-up will be provided for those so inclined.
 
~The current headquarters link will be updated for 2018 after the beginning of the year--a place for review links and the year-end wrap-up.

Prizes!
~All challengers who complete their level with readily explained clues will be eligible for an end-of-year prize drawing.






 

The Fate of the Follow the Clues Challenge

Last year about this time, I unveiled a brand new challenge--the Follow the Clues Mystery Challenge. We started the year with 23 participants--over the course of the year, I have had four-five people actively participating (through the link-ups or by posting comments) and when I put up my poll I had only four people respond that they would like to give this another go. Two respondents said they'd like something different...with that in mind I'm going to run the Follow the Clues Challenge one more time, but I'm going to change it up a bit to see if it brings in more interest. Stay tuned....I hope to have the revised challenge up and running by this weekend.

November Follow the Clues Reviews

Looking Towards 2018: Vintage Mystery Challenge Poll Results and Other Challenges

The votes are in two votes for a return to Vintage Bingo; no votes for Vintage Scattergories; one vote for Vintage Themes; three votes for the Original Challenge; two votes for another round of the Scavenger Hunt; and the winner was Something Different with six votes. I will be putting the finishing touches on the latest edition of the Vintage Mystery Challenge this week and hope to have the rules and sign-up posted soon.

Also--for those participating in other challenges:

Mount TBR, Color Coded, and Read It Again, Sam will all be back for another round in 2018 as well. A new poll will appear in the sidebar about the Follow the Clues Challenge to gauge interest for next year. I didn't find it to be as interesting as I expected and I haven't gotten a sense from the number of folks who have posted reviews that this has been a great success. Please let me know what you think about it in the sidebar poll.