Cain’s Jawbone: Old book becomes a cult phenomenon, has its own club ... and at last has come to Australia
A 90-year-old mystery book has become a social media sensation – not just because Daniel Craig was spotted reading it in the bath, but because people are obsessed with solving the puzzle.
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AS Daniel Craig’s detective character, Benoit Blanc, luxuriates in a bathtub in the much-hyped sequel to Knives Out, many sharp-eyed viewers noted his book of choice – Cain’s Jawbone.
Almost 90 years after it was left to gather dust on a bookshelf, the resurrected whodunnit has become an international bestseller, a social media sensation and the ultimate test of puzzling prowess. Think: Wordle on a far more niche and confounding scale.
Given both its puzzling and pop culture pedigree, it was fitting that Cain’s Jawbone should be included as an Easter egg in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery as an in-joke for mystery lovers.
Publisher John Mitchinson, who brought Cain’s Jawbone back to shelves overseas ahead of its recent arrival Down Under, says the book is now such a sensation that there is now even talk it could spawn a TV series – and a sequel.
The only head scratcher for Mitchinson on that front is, how on earth do you translate such an unconventional book into a TV narrative, without losing what stands it apart from popular crime writers like Val McDermid, John Le Carre and Ann Cleeves?
“We have been looking at how we could do it,” Mitchinson says of a Cain’s Jawbone TV series. We are thinking there could be 15 short episodes and you don’t know what order they should be in.
“There’s lots of interesting challenges [in bringing Cain’s Jawbone to the screen] because how can you have people murdering each other without knowing who’s doing it. So, it would be peculiar television, but people love novelty.”
Created in 1934 by a British newspaper’s cryptic crossword inventor, Edward Powys Mathers (with the gripping pen-name Torquemada), Cain’s Jawbone is essentially what you would get if you crossed an Agatha Christie mystery with a Rubik’s cube.
In this bamboozling book – riddled with red herrings and spoonerisms – there are six killers and six victims; but to figure out whodunit (and who met their maker) the reader must first reorder its 100 pages, which have been completely jumbled.
Only two people cracked the code when the book was first published. And since the book was rediscovered and re-released by Mitchinson, more than 100 diligent readers have gone on to officially find the solution too.
Thousands more have tried and failed. And little wonder. Solving the book takes a lot of time (and some very niche knowledge of 1930s popular culture, poetry and the British railways).
Mitchinson himself, who despite his best efforts and passion for the book, was defeated.
“But I now feel that I know too much about it to genuinely go ahead and feel the satisfaction of doing it myself,” he says.
While it is possible to find spoilers online, Mitchinson says most readers ignore inside information as a matter of principal. It takes the lustre off the victory, to have any sort of help.
He also understands some readers are frustrated at not being able to have the answers and so plans are afoot to publish a solution in coming years.
Those who have managed to solve it consider themselves part of an elite group. Initially the UK publishers offered a 1000-pound prize, but now there’s the added kudos of being made a member of the Cain’s Jawbone Club.
“We wrote to everybody who solved it and said, we’d love you to join the club and we are going to give you a special badge and a certificate that only people who have solved this will understand the significance of,” Mitchinson enthuses.
This exclusive club has had its first official meeting in Britain in July.
“And 34 people came,” he says.
“We had people from as far away as America come along … the room was filled by people who had genuinely solved it.
“It was one of the most remarkable things I have ever been at.”
Mitchinson was surprised to discover that most of the puzzle solvers were young women.
“It wasn’t sort of elderly scholars who were doing this, it was, I am guessing, people who were gamers and puzzlers,” he says.
“I asked them if this was the most difficult puzzle they’d ever done and they said: ‘yes, it was the most difficult and also the most rewarding’ which is why we did it.
“I would be lying if I said I thought it would be a best seller. I just thought it would be something fun to do.”
Mitchinson credits the pandemic with creating an environment ripe for puzzling and sharing online.
Certainly, interest in the book skyrocketed after an American TikToker named Sarah Scannell began sharing snippets of her quest online with her almost 80,000 followers.
Likewise, comedy scriptwriter John Finnemore –the first to solve the puzzle since its re-release – devoted months of his COVID lockdown to unravelling the mystery, turning his spare room into a Cain’s Jawbone war room, and detailing his endeavour on his YouTube Channel.
Finnemore is now penning a sequel to Cain’s Jawbone, which is set to be published in 2024.
Cain’s Jawbone is on sale now in Australia, published by HarperCollins. It is our new Book of the Month, which means a 33 per cent discount off the RRP with the code JAWBONE at Booktopia.
You can also enter a competition to be the first to solve Cain’s Jawbone and win $1200 worth of Collins Classics. Full details at www.harpercollins.com.au/cainsjawbone/
And drop by the Sunday Book Club Facebook group to tell us what you think.
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