RARA-AVIS: Solution to "The Colorado Kid," An appolgy to The Brad Stevens

From: Bludis Jack ( buildsnburns@yahoo.com)
Date: 23 Nov 2006


The Brad Stevens gave us a solution to "The Colorado Kid.":

<<The back cover of THE COLORADO KID claims that the book has "echoes of Dashiell Hammett's THE MALTESE FALCON". Well, there's only one part of THE MALTESE FALCON that has anything to do with THE COLORADO KID, and that's the story of Flitcraft, which you will find in the 'G in the Air' chapter of Hammett's novel. Flitcraft sudenly decided to walk away from his life when a falling beam which came close to killing him showed him how fragile his well-ordered existence was. It seems pretty clear to me that something similar must have happened to Cogan in THE COLORADO KID. After he leaves his office, something happens to make him want to run away from his former life. Vince and Dave make a big thing about how carefully Cogan must have planned everything in order to get to Moose-Look island in the time he did. But it all makes perfect sense if we assume that Cogan had no intention of ending up in Moose-Look - he simply wanted to run as far as he could in any direction in as short a period of time as possible, and simple happened to end up in Moose-Look. So he jumps in a taxi in Colorado, drives to the airport, somehow talks himself onboard the next plane that's taking off (perhaps charming the pilot with the sheer arbitrariness of his behavior), ends up in Maine, wanders to a nearby highway, sticks out his thumb, catches a ride, and finds himself headed for Moose-Look.

<<The cigarettes he probably finds at the airport in Colorado. He's never smoked before, but since he's decided to change all his old patterns of behavior, he picks them up. He smokes his first cigarette when he arrives on the island, but since he's a non-smoker, he begins coughing, and is still coughing soon after when he tries eating a steak, which is why he chokes on it.

<<The Rusian coin I can't quite fit in - maybe it's meaningless.>>

Yes, it did strike of the Batman solution, a series of coincidences.

The truth is, though, Flitcraft of not, the solution had to be something like that, but a solution that no one except the victim himself could know but we all can speculate about.

I was just being flippant because you thought of that one first. I don't think it is necessarily correct, but my solution was just as "coincidental." I'd bet that many who read the book came up with similar but unprovable solutions.

If that is the exact one, only Stephen King and Charles Ardai know--Charles because he wrote the back-cover blurb. Stephen King, because he loves to play with his reader.

Brad or whoever you are, I apologize.

Jack Bludis

 
____________________________________________________________________________________ Cheap talk? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates. http://voice.yahoo.com



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 23 Nov 2006 EST