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cimoreneI've started reading this murder mystery because it was on Standard Ebooks and looked interesting.
This is about the murder of a well-known collector of antique firearms in the middle of his collection and the investigation by another collector. Many other collector characters appear, with facts about the hobby.
I love reading fiction that gives us a window into a scene of nerdy highly-specialized knowledge like this.
Long-time readers will know that I have dabbled in fountain pen collecting, but I was collecting them more with an eye to ordinary usage and functionality, not the kind of breadth or historical focus that the fictional gun collectors, and many other much more dedicated fountain pen collectors, bring to it. I have too many art and craft hobbies to focus that kind of time and money on fountain pens and a temperament that doesn't really like keeping ones around that I don't realistically intend to use. In fact, I have some more that I would probably give away except I don't have appropriate recipients (enthusiasts who would want them) and I don't have the time to spend figuring out how to resell them.
However, I've read enough about the hobby to have a mental outline of how this mystery could be about a collector with a collection of antique pens worth tens of thousands of dollars murdered with pen equipment (I'm thinking a hypodermic syringe - you need these for some cleaning and filling tasks; equipment stores sell them with the tips blunted so you can't hurt yourself easily, but obviously you could more cheaply file it down yourself, and that's what a frequent tinkerer or nib grinder would do). They could be killed by intravenous injection of an air bubble, like in Sayers's Unnatural Death, which is one of my favorite classics.
Of course that would look like natural death, so maybe something silly and showy like tracheotomy by sharpened nib would be better. I'm probably not going to write this because I don't know enough about that level of collecting. But I would like to read it.
This is about the murder of a well-known collector of antique firearms in the middle of his collection and the investigation by another collector. Many other collector characters appear, with facts about the hobby.
I love reading fiction that gives us a window into a scene of nerdy highly-specialized knowledge like this.
Long-time readers will know that I have dabbled in fountain pen collecting, but I was collecting them more with an eye to ordinary usage and functionality, not the kind of breadth or historical focus that the fictional gun collectors, and many other much more dedicated fountain pen collectors, bring to it. I have too many art and craft hobbies to focus that kind of time and money on fountain pens and a temperament that doesn't really like keeping ones around that I don't realistically intend to use. In fact, I have some more that I would probably give away except I don't have appropriate recipients (enthusiasts who would want them) and I don't have the time to spend figuring out how to resell them.
However, I've read enough about the hobby to have a mental outline of how this mystery could be about a collector with a collection of antique pens worth tens of thousands of dollars murdered with pen equipment (I'm thinking a hypodermic syringe - you need these for some cleaning and filling tasks; equipment stores sell them with the tips blunted so you can't hurt yourself easily, but obviously you could more cheaply file it down yourself, and that's what a frequent tinkerer or nib grinder would do). They could be killed by intravenous injection of an air bubble, like in Sayers's Unnatural Death, which is one of my favorite classics.
Of course that would look like natural death, so maybe something silly and showy like tracheotomy by sharpened nib would be better. I'm probably not going to write this because I don't know enough about that level of collecting. But I would like to read it.
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Date: 17 Feb 2025 04:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 23 Feb 2025 01:17 pm (UTC)