Skip to main content

The mysterious case of the disappearing author

Where's Sherlock Holmes when you need him? For I have become aware of a case that I am sure he would regard as a three pipe problem. Consider this, dear reader, consider this.

 Facebook allows you to set up closed or 'private' groups - handy to hang out with friends for a chat about work or whatever you like. I belong to one with a number of online friends, and like all such groups, joining is by invitation - you can't see any details from the outside.

Yesterday one of the members was contacted on Facebook, by someone called Laurindo Jones, asking about the group by name. He seemed to have joined Facebook for the sole purpose, as he had only signed up 1 hour before. Around five others in the same group got friend requests from him within a matter of hours... then, as one of them was trying to find out more about 'Laurindo', the Facebook account was suddenly deleted. Most scarily of all, one of us got an email from him to a personal email address not connected to Facebook in any way.

Do a web search for Laurindo Jones and it seems he was an author of sorts. He has a profile on Amazon.com and did have a book listed on Amazon, Barnes & Noble etc. Only that has disappeared now too from all the online bookstores.

So what do we know about 'Laurindo'? According to his profile he is an American college student who wrote an erotic novel, allegedly partly based on his experiences. He comments 'Naturally "Laurindo Jones," is a pen name -- going to school fulltime and working is hard enough, without having to put up with a bunch of college girls curious to find out certain things about me.' Is he an author? Well: 'Whether my life now will lead to another book in the future, at this time I just don't know. That really depends on whether or not this one sells enough copies to make another worthwhile.'... Only 'this one' is hardly going to sell many copies now it has ceased to be available.

Thanks to the wonders of Google cache, we can discover that his book, My Totally Crazy Love Life appears to be a classic bit of teen wish fulfilment, and that it was published by 'Story Scene Press' who allegedly operate from storyscenepress.com which, guess what... has disappeared too. Yet the book was around from 2011, so unlike the Facebook membership, it doesn't seem to have been set up purely as an infiltration move.

So there were have it. A mysterious possible writer who had an unhealthy interest in members of a group he shouldn't particular know exists, then disappeared off the face of the Earth.

Will the mystery ever be solved? I don't know. But if you know Laurindo, drop me an email at brian@brianclegg.net - and if you are enjoying the mystery, I'll update this post with any further developments...


Labels:

Comments

  1. cromercrox12 March 2013 at 10:17

    A mystery wrapped in a conundrum draped in an enigma. Call it the Gerbil of the Baskervilles.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp
117 comments
Read more

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5.  However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor
25 comments
Read more

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense
6 comments
Read more