The Brad Stevens gave us a solution to "The Colorado
Kid.":
<<The back cover of THE COLORADO KID claims that the
book has "echoes of Dashiell Hammett's THE MALTESE FALCON".
Well, there's only one part of THE MALTESE FALCON that has
anything to do with THE COLORADO KID, and that's the story of
Flitcraft, which you will find in the 'G in the Air' chapter
of Hammett's novel. Flitcraft sudenly decided to walk away
from his life when a falling beam which came close to killing
him showed him how fragile his well-ordered existence was. It
seems pretty clear to me that something similar must have
happened to Cogan in THE COLORADO KID. After he leaves his
office, something happens to make him want to run away from
his former life. Vince and Dave make a big thing about how
carefully Cogan must have planned everything in order to get
to Moose-Look island in the time he did. But it all makes
perfect sense if we assume that Cogan had no intention of
ending up in Moose-Look - he simply wanted to run as far as
he could in any direction in as short a period of time as
possible, and simple happened to end up in Moose-Look. So he
jumps in a taxi in Colorado, drives to the airport, somehow
talks himself onboard the next plane that's taking off
(perhaps charming the pilot with the sheer arbitrariness of
his behavior), ends up in Maine, wanders to a nearby highway,
sticks out his thumb, catches a ride, and finds himself
headed for Moose-Look.
<<The cigarettes he probably finds at the airport in
Colorado. He's never smoked before, but since he's decided to
change all his old patterns of behavior, he picks them up. He
smokes his first cigarette when he arrives on the island, but
since he's a non-smoker, he begins coughing, and is still
coughing soon after when he tries eating a steak, which is
why he chokes on it.
<<The Rusian coin I can't quite fit in - maybe it's
meaningless.>>
Yes, it did strike of the Batman solution, a series of
coincidences.
The truth is, though, Flitcraft of not, the solution had to
be something like that, but a solution that no one except the
victim himself could know but we all can speculate
about.
I was just being flippant because you thought of that one
first. I don't think it is necessarily correct, but my
solution was just as "coincidental." I'd bet that many who
read the book came up with similar but unprovable
solutions.
If that is the exact one, only Stephen King and Charles Ardai
know--Charles because he wrote the back-cover blurb. Stephen
King, because he loves to play with his reader.
Brad or whoever you are, I apologize.
Jack Bludis
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