Liner Notes for Cousinly Rivalry

 

Liner Notes for Cousinly Rivalry

What if there were three idiot cousins who worked for the family firm, and all suspected each other of trying to push the others out. That’s the one line story idea I wrote down while trying to come up with thirteen plots for this series. As you can see it evolved a bit from there. I didn’t write down the central dynamic/joke – all three try to get Schneemann to investigate the others – because it was obvious too me. Too obvious, hack work, I would come up with a more interesting complication when the time came.

Oh well.

How does logistics work? How can you ship cargoes around the world, have supply meet demand? We take it for granted, yet the sheer amount of infrastructure and expertise required is astounding. Modern methods require planners to source materials years in advance, book factories and transportation, find markets to sell. And all invisible until it goes wrong (large boat blocks the Suez Canal etc). How much more so a hundred and twenty years ago.

All this effort just to carry jute! This is a rather niche in-joke, in which I pretend that no one knows what jute is or used for, it’s just carried around for traditional reasons. I’m not going to look up what it’s for, if you’re interested find out for yourself.

Schneemann catches the embezzler, then sends him away, hoping to use him as an agent. I don’t know if I’m going to pick that thread up again – this isn’t a novel where I want to tightly weave everything together and rough edges are deliberate. I don’t have a planned use for him! But I do have him in mind as I work towards a finale.