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The 3rd Serial Killer Guess the Plot Quiz

As we wait for a couple more fake plots to come in, here's another Guess the Plot Quiz. In honor of our coming book chat book, The Serialist, here are some serial killer fake plots that have appeared here recently. And mixed in are three plots that turned out to be the actual plots of minions' novels. Which three?



1. Make the coffee, Brooker. Fetch us some donuts, Brooker. File our reports, Brooker. Sexism is one thing, but can sharp-eyed Vivian Brooker overcome the emotional frailty inherent to her gender long enough to capture a serial killer--before she becomes his next victim?

2. Seventeen-year-old Veronica is staying alone at her family's remote beach house overnight. She's fully prepared for the first serial killer--after all, she's seen all the movies. The second one, though, proves harder to kill. By the time the third is mincemeat, she's exhausted. Can Veronica face . . . The Last Slayer?

3. Mckluskey Harvey is enjoying his summer in the Florida Keys--until human traffickers swoop in, kidnap his girlfriend, and turn her over to a serial killer to satisfy his cravings. Mcklusky tracks the traffickers through a mangled maze of mangroves to Dismal Key. But is he too late to save his sweetie?

4. Vampires! They don't turn into bats, sparkle or have fangs, and they do have reflections, but they will drink your blood! Oh, hang it, they're just highly organized, deranged serial killers! And they're after the protagonists, who are smoking hot and scantily clad!

5. Author Buck McClain's life takes a turn toward terror when he discovers that the serial killer bestseller he wrote plagiarized was actually written by a real serial killer who's not happy with Buck making bucks off his book.

6. College student Leah Martin must stop the killing spree of a serial killer known only as The Shadow. But every step Leah takes toward The Shadow is a step toward her own dark desires.

7. In the midst of investigating a supernatural serial killer, Robyn is hired to cure a child who is turning into a dead tree. Then she learns that she's the chosen one who must defeat the invincible entity known as "The Cloud." Ever have one of those days?

8. Lost in the woods at night, Kirene sees a distant flash of light. Is it a cabin? And if so, is it the cabin of a witch or a kindhearted soul or a serial killer? To find out you'll have to read the book, because the query only takes you as far as the door.

9. A serial killer is hiding under the boardwalk, just up the beach, ten yards down from the ice cream stand. This is her story, in her own words. Don't order the Cherry Surprise.



Answers below




The actual plots are . . .


numbers 1, 3 and 7

The Second Triennial Serial Killer Guess the Plot Quiz

You wouldn't want to meet one in real life, but serial killers turn up in fake plots every so often. Real plots too: Five of the following plots turned out to be the actual plots of minions' novels. Which ones?

1. Combining the studies of Vlad Dracul, Jack the Ripper, Billy the Kid, Ted Bundy and Seung Hui Cho, The Academy analyzed the most violent of killers throughout the centuries and created the newest breed of serial killers. But can they also create the profilers to stop them? Game on.

2. A decade after the death of his wife in a tragic sculling incident, border patrolman Clint Fujimaki still believes she was murdered. The serial killer known as "The Drowner" hasn't sunk a victim in years, but when illegals begin bobbing up in the Rio Grande, Fujimaki has a sinking feeling that his wife's murderer has returned.

3. It sucks being named Jane Doe. It doesn't help that she's quiet as a church mouse at the morgue, where she works. It also doesn't help that she dresses like a homeless woman, especially when a serial killer starts murdering homeless women around the city. Police think she's the next Jane Doe to die. Can Jane develop some fashion sense before it's too late?

4. When the Herald goes out of business, it has a bigger effect on Sunnydale than just a couple hundred lost jobs, especially when a serial killer begins stalking the residents, and no one can get up-to-date news or check the obituaries to see who the most recent victim was.

5. Who is killing the homeless? I'm Addy. I run the shelter, and I've fallen for one of the homeless guys, but that's the least of my problems. The cops think I'm the obsessed serial killer behind all the grisly murders committed lately, here on . . . Harper Street.

6. When Jasmine has a psychic vision of her rival Marissa dying at the hands of a serial killer, she's tempted to say nothing, but eventually she tells hunky police detective Eric. Now Jasmine's having visions that indicate she should have kept her mouth shut. Has she become the killer's next target?

7. Hanna Murphy, author of the scandalous I NEED A MAN RIGHT NOW! blog, disappears and everyone assumes a serial killer was responsible, but Inspector Joyce Raines realizes there's a paranormal air-sucking hole in the Murphy plumbing -- just as she, too, is transported through it to a swampy time-space warp full of evil wizards.

8. A series of bizarre deaths--someone drowns in a pile of barley, someone has a fatal encounter with a dishwasher, etc.--has the police thinking accidents, but one psychologist realizes there's a serial killer on the loose, one he might be able to lead down the rocky path to . . . Redemption.

9. When the letters U and I turn up missing from alphabet soup cans at crime scenes, homicide detective Zack Martinez knows two things: he's on the trail of a kleptomaniac serial killer who was traumatized by a childhood word guessing game; and he'd better remember to pick up his wife's Andy Warhol comforter from Hang's Dry Cleaning.

10. Burned out after twenty years of white collar work, a yuppie quits his job and moves to a farm in Wales, where he finds peace and takes up a new hobby: torturing and slaughtering people in his . . . Chicken Shed.

11. Convicted of sixteen murders by the age of thirteen, the world's youngest serial killer, waits on death row. A