Plot suggestion.

Kerr52

hey g'day!

i have always admired the plot of The Pale Horse where the reasons for the murders are based around a clever betting scam.
for a while i have been trying to think of a suitable hook on which to base a storyline and recently i came up with a story re murder based around a tontine, where a group of people who regularly get together agree to place money in the pot to be wholly received by the last person standing. they meet annually to assess the numbers of people and cash as it has been invested.
although i think this is good i have thought of a twist to the tontine plot whereby people who meet regularly actually bet on the next person to die. the list of possible deaduns is quite open and could range from the queen to uncle bill.
perhaps i'll never fulfill my dream of writing my own AC mystery so i put it out there as a gift for anyone to pick it up and run (or write) with it.
cheeeers!

Tommy_A_Jones

It has been done in the Christie book SPOILER ALERT 4 50 From Paddington and in the Film the Cat and The Canary, the idea is still a good one and if there were changes and twists it would be good 

Kerr52

hi Tommy_A_Jones!

thanks for your comments.
i was not familiar with The Cat and the Canary but looked at it on imdb and utube. both the 1927 and 1939 versions.
it was not quite what i was thinking but i can see some similarities.
i have a friend who is in a tontine. it started about 45 years ago when he and a large group of friends, about forty, from where he worked all put $100 into a pot. the total was quite substantial and was placed in a long term deposit with a high interest rate locked in.
every year they meet at the same hotel where it all began and decide who is still "alive" and what the "prize" is currently worth.
die, and your eliminated. miss three in a row, and your out. or you can opt out. in any event you forfeit your share to the pot.
after he was diagnosed with early emphysema he gave up smoking and began a health kick. most unlike him.
is the tontine behind it all? is it an incentive to help things along? how far would a person go?

cheeeeers!

GKCfan

There's another comedy movie about a tontine called "The Wrong Box."  P.G. Wodehouse wrote a comedic novel about a tontine, although the catch is that it isn't about who outlives the others.  The money goes to the man who is the last to get married, and the catch is that the fathers put the money up for their sons and none of the sons know that they're out of the tontine if the get married.

Tommy_A_Jones

There is a Comedy Drama on the same lies with Neil Pearson, Warren Clarke, Robert Daws and Nick Berry, they all put money into the pot and the last one living gets the lot.I can't remember what the Drama is called