Book Project 1
Do you love Monopoly? Did you read The Cuckoo’s Calling and love it? Well, we are offering you a brand new game of Monopoly called; “Cuckoo’s Monopoly.” The game includes actual places visited in the book, like Guy Some’s design studio, Strikes office and The Mayfair. Also in this Monopoly is a little sneak peak at the sequel just released, called The Silkworm. The game hits stores this Friday at your local bookstore!
Cormoran Strike, or better known as Strike, is a war veteran and amputee, now working as a detective. The book opens at the crime scene, the Mayfair Apartments where Lula Landry has been discovered dead. She appeared to fall from the balcony of her apartment. The police take one look at her and say, “the poor cow jumped. There was no one else there. Your so called witness was coked out of her mind.” After three months of further detective work, the police label her death a suicide. In comes John Bristow, Lula’s brother and big time lawyer. He believes that Lula’s death wasn't by accident. He thinks someone killed her. Strike has been having financial issues after divorcing his wife. He is living in his office and falling behind on his bills. One day, Strike gets a phone call from John Bristow saying he would like to set up an appointment. Strike agrees and they meet. John wants Strike to investigate Lula’s death and he insists he will pay him handsomely. Due to his deep debts, Strike accepts the case. Bristow has a nice, little folder with lots of information on the “suicide” to help him. Strike quickly starts to interview Lula’s family and close friends. One of the more interesting interviews he has is with the designer, Guy Some. Guy is a gay, African-American designer who is on top of the fashion world. As Strike is talking to him, Guy accuses Lula’s boyfriend Evan Duffeild and says, “All of us have got it in us, somewhere, to kill, so why would Duffeild be any exception?” After interviewing some of Lula’s closest friends and watching tape from the night of the ‘suicide,’ he is starting to put together a good idea of what happened. The final person Strike interviews is Lula’s mom. She only has days to live before she dies of cancer. Strike isn't really going to her house to interview Lula’s mother. Rather, he has a hunch that Lula’s will had been hidden in her purse. His hunch turns out to be correct. He locates the purse, finds the will and the will reads that all of her money is to be given to her real brother; not John Bristow, who is Lula’s adoptive brother. Strike, with all the evidence he has, is ready to confront John with the facts that will put him away for life. Strike confronts Bristow alone at his office and shares all the details of his investigation. Bristow denies everything, in the beginning, until Strike says, “An innocent man wouldn’t be sitting here listening to me. He’d have stormed out by now. But don’t worry I’ve got proof.” After Strike finishes his explanation of his investigation, Bristow tries to attack him with a knife. Strike, who had been a boxer in the military, is able to handle him until Strike’s secretary comes in and calls the police.
The idea of Monopoly is a great idea because Monopoly can be played by anyone over the age of ten. Monopoly is a good format because you could use the colorful characters from the book as game pieces and all of the different places in the book as properties. The Community Chest and Chance cards could be from random parts of the book, like when Strike falls down the stairs and you would lose money or when Lula fell and you were a photographer and you sold your picture and made money. It would also be cool to have a quick summary of the book on the back of the game and even offer a special edition of the game that has the actual book included. After reading this book, I think it would be fun to play a game based on this book because of all the plot twists. It would also make the book and game more popular if more people knew that J.K. Rowling wrote the book and she used a pseudonym. It could be placed on the front of the game because she is a popular author. Another idea that could of been cool would be to make a clothing line from the book and call it, “Guy Somes" clothing line after the character in the book.
