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PARTISAN GOVERNMENT OXYMORON
Presumed Dead is a novel authored by Martin Knox about the elected governments of a large Australian city, which are duopolies, each pretending to have an opposition, like in a Westminster system. When the two sides are deadlocked, it is unlikely but possible that a contest could be resolved corruptly or even criminally. The novel crime fiction reveals the fragility of partisan government.
When tie-breaker Jane Kenwood, an iconic parliamentarian, disappears before a hung parliament votes, her partner Phillip Keane, a forensic scientist, leads an investigation. A team of friends reconstructs events by a Euler Walk strategy. They expose the perpetrators in a denouement. Will the government be shamed into becoming non-partisan? This is thrilling story of political skulduggery that will keep you guessing, in the wake of think tank meetings, that explore scientifically and logically, with expertise and humour.
Available from Amazon. Reviews at martinknox.com
WHO ABDUCTED JANE?
In the fiction novel Presumed Dead by Martin Knox, Jane Kenwood is a feisty politician in a hung city council where her vote is needed to stop a casino being approved. She disappears before a crucial vote. When she is found, she is too badly affected by an assault to identify where she had been taken, what was done to her, nor characteristics of her assailants. Her friend Dr Phillip Keane leads a forensic team who gather evidence for every alternative they can imagine, by Euler’s theory, in a think tank. Phillip pieces together a logical reconstruction of the crime that reveals the perpetrators. The investigation is explorative, the evidence is surmise, the suspects are at large and cover their tracks until the dénouement.
This is an exciting whodunnit story of city hall politics and systematic forensic investigation that will keep you turning the pages to the very end.
Available on Amazon. Blog with reviews: martinknox.com
POLITICAL CRIME FICTION THRILLER
Jane Kenwood is a feisty independent on a city council rife with skulduggery. When there is to be a vote on a casino project that she has been outspoken in opposing in a hung parliament, she disappears mysteriously.
Dr Phillip Keane, her partner, is a forensic scientist and sets up a think tank of her friends to investigate, with help from the police. The story has forensic science to savour and reveals corruption in partisan politics that disable governments.
The friends search systematically and find evidence of causal links between the perpetrators’ motives, suspects’ characteristics, crime scenes and the victim’s condition. Hypotheses reconstructing the heinous crime are related by an Euler walk, a theory of the crime able to convict, keeping you guessing until the dramatic final dénouement.
martinknox.com
A NEW WAY TO SOLVE CRIMES
The novel Presumed Dead is a crime fiction story in which a forensic scientist, Dr Phillip Keane painstakingly reconstructs the disappearance of feisty Councillor Jane Kenwood. He and his think tank attempt to associate each of 4 types of evidence, as either cause or effect, with other evidence in a causal hypothesis, one of 8 linking from the final victim’s condition back to the earliest perpetrator’s motive. This is shown in the diagram, in which each arrow is a causal hypothesis from cause to effect, going from step 8 to step 1. Of course, the evidence won’t be discovered exactly as in this sequence, but by investigating the possibilities in this sequence their approach is methodical, efficient and comprehensive. The efficiency is achieved by conceiving of it as a ‘Euler walk’, a logical pathway connecting nodes without repeating links, a foundation of graph theory in mathematics. With this strategy, the friends investigate the abduction, piece together events and search for missing evidence. It is a strategy that could probably be used for other crimes of motive and victim e.g. murder, assault, arson, theft, fraud and property damage. The novel also illustrates ills of partisanship in town hall politics and how they are conquered by an iconic independent woman politician. Reviews are on my blog: martinknox.com
