Mystillery Newsletter #16

Do you enjoy cozy Martha Grimes British pub settings? How about J. J. Farjeon trapped-in-a-snowstorm mysteries? Now you can have both. In the news: British pub patrons snowed in for three days. ( full story ) Well, it's better than getting snowed in at the dentist's office for three days. Someone needs to write a murder mystery on this one quick...

Next time you visit Maine (you do visit Maine, don't you?) you may wish to visit a unique bookstore located inside a railroad boxcar. Here is the story from the Bangor Daily News.

The 2021 challenge year is winding down. Here's how the transition to 2022 will go:

Medical Examiner, Six Shooter, and Beachcomber will close at midnight Dec 24. (Century Club and Ten Pins remain open).
Dec. 25 is reserved for everyone to open book-shaped gifts.
During the week Dec 26-31, the 2022 Medical Examiner, 2022 Six Shooter, and 2022 Beachcomber will be prepared by The Mystillery staff. These links are already live and will take you to placeholder pages until the challenge pages are washed and waxed, so you can bookmark them now or check periodically to see when they are ready.
Each challenge will come online as soon it is ready, Jan. 1 at the latest. The challenge pages will be empty of names until submissions arrive. When you make your first 2022 submission, your name will reappear.
All submission forms remain open during the transition. Feel free to use them - all submissions will be applied to the 2022 challenges.

Please note all challenge prizes will be discontinued in 2022. They have not attracted much interest.

Bev at My Reader's Block has posted her 2022 Vintage Scattergories challenge. It is available for signup now!

Bev at My Reader's Block has just posted her Mount TBR 2022 challenge. It is available for signup now!

SEARCH ENGINE UPDATED: The search engine had its monthly update this morning (Dec 1), so your submissions through Nov 30 are indexed and can now be found by it. This is available from the Medical Examiner and Six Shooter challenge pages.

Medical Examiner news

HAPPENINGS IN NOVEMBER:

We are fast approaching Toe Tag #10,000!
A new award level was instituted this month: The Massive Magnesium Magnifier, for writing 500 Toe Tags. It was jointly awarded to Tina Hilbert (Utah) and Jjean (Missouri), who each passed that milestone this month!
Avid Series Reader (New Mexico) tied her 400th Toe Tag to squeeze the Squishy Scarlet Sponge away from Tina Hilbert! She was destined to not squeeze it for long, however. As Mary Roberts Rinehart would have put it, "Had I but known I would only hold the Squishy Scarlet Sponge for those few short precious days as the snow piled up on the dark, winding entrance road to the estate, hiding the body of Sir Norton; I would have squeezed that sucker so flat. The sponge, I mean; not the body. It was already quite flat."
Traci L (Illinois) tied her 200th toe tag to flip the Floppy Fuschia Forceps away from Susan Jensen!
In a burst of autopsy energy, Susan Jensen (Arizona) had her revenge and tied her 300th toe tag to bully the Brass Bone Saw away from Scott Nickels, then went on to tie her 400th toe tag to slide the Squishy Scarlet Sponge away from Avid Series Reader! As of this moment, she holds both awards simultaneously, and at the same time.

Morgue Statistics

Year	2019	2020	2021*
Medical Examiners	8	14	37
Total toe tags issued	1444	2719	9706
Total books read	441	806	1780
Average toe tags per book	3.27	3.37	5.45
Average toe tags per examiner	180	194	262
Average books read per examiner	55	57	48

* as of December 1

Six Shooter news

Welcome to our newest gunslinger, Ena_Reads_Books from the United Kingdom!

A housekeeping note: If you have partially-completed authors in your shooting gallery which have left you cold and you do not wish to continue with them, let me know and I will mark them to not rollover into 2022.

Save time with the checkbox: If you intend to submit a book to both Medical Examiner and Six Shooter, use the Medical Examiner Death Certificate form. You will find a little checkbox at the bottom which will automatically submit your book to both challenges.

NEW NOTCHES CARVED IN NOVEMBER:

Jjean (Missouri) carved notch #5 with author James Patterson and that notch also was the 100th notch of the challenge! Compare that to the 2019 Six Shooter when we had 27 notches total, and the 2020 Six Shooter when we had 64 notches total.
Traci L (Illinois) carved her Notch #6 for author Lizzie Josephson and notch #7 for author Jessica Fletcher!
Avid Series Reader (New Mexico) carved notch #2 with author Barbara Cleverly and notch #3 with author Martha Grimes !
OutsmartYourShelf (United Kingdom) carved notch #3 with author Val McDermid and notch #4 with Patricia Cornwell !
C0NTENTH0MEB0DY carved notch # 15 for author John Sandford !
SueC (Utah) carved notch # 13 for author Susan Wittig Albert and notch # 14 for author Charles Finch !
Rick Mills (Maine) carved notch #11 with author Agatha Christie!

NEW SHARPSHOOTERS IN NOVEMBER:

None, however...read on.
A score of 1.000 is considered the "perfect" score - which can be achieved by reading only six books by one author, and then stopping (1/6*6=1.000). Once you start adding more authors, it gets complicated fast! To be a Sharpshooter, you much achieve a score of 1.000 or better at some point (you keep the sharpshooter badge even if your score subsequently drops below 1.000).
Meanwhile, our gunsliingers are achieving even greater shooting proficiency, so we have added a new badge level. The Booksniper badge is awarded for achieving a score of 2.000 or greater. This gives us four booksnipers: Sanacrow (Tennessee), C0NTENTH0MEB0DY, SueC (Utah), and your humble host.

The Six Shooter rollover is coming! At the end of December, the 2021 Six Shooter Challenge will roll over to 2022! When the 2022 version is posted, your completed targets will be removed. Your partially completed targets will still appear, so you do not lose any progress. All your numbers (notch, shot, TCP, bonus, and score) will reset to zero. Of course, the entire 2021 challenge will be archived so you can still refer back to see your 2021 targets. (For some nostalgia, take a look back at 2019 and 2020.)

Shooting Gallery Statistics

Year	2019	2020	2021*
Gunslingers	8	18	21
Total shots taken (books read)	192	619	1013
Total notches carved (sets of 6)	27	64	101
Average shots (books) per gunslinger	24	34	48
Average notches (sets of 6) per gunslinger	3.37	3.55	4.80

* as of December 1

From The Mystillery

Medical Examiner news

Six Shooter news

Beachcomber news

Century Club news

Ten Pins news

Abra Cadavers news

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