1E

Any initial thoughts about the threat to the supermarket? What could be on the shelves? How did you think they should respond to the threat?

In the opening chapter, someone was cooking up something with a Petri dish in a dirty fridge and a sealed jar of jam from Huntings. I assumed the infected jam had been replaced on the supermarket’s shelves for some unsuspecting shopper to pick up. Not only nasty - downright evil, knowing it would kill.
The threat should have been taken seriously, though short of shutting the doors and clearing the shelves of all foodstuffs, I don’t know what else could’ve been done.

>2 Sergeirocks: It had to be the poisoned jam that was mentioned right at the beginning of the book. I agree the threat should have been taken far more seriously by everyone, although difficult to know how they’d prevent poisoning of this kind.

There was a case while my husband was still on the police force in Tampa that some brilliant college kid tried creating anthrax. He freeze dried it and was planning to leave in in area restaurants. His roommate reported it to the Dean, and he was arrested before he could carry it out. I thought of that immediately when reading what was happening at the supermarket. I learned that you can do some nasty things especially with air borne diseases.

>4 Carol420: Just look at the impact of an airborne disease like COvID. With airborne poisons and chemicals can do untold damage. Look at the Sarin attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995. Read a book recently where the killer in Chicago was poisoning the City’s food supply. A lot of people were killed. Dirty Martini by J A Konrath.

The threat is real and as was said by Andrew poisoning jam has been mentioned

I agree that the threat to the supermarket should have been taken more seriously. It should have instantly been closed while a forensic search was carried out. The manager, it is clear, is no longer a star and seems to be mainly interested in shoring up his rather fragile position. Pl;easing the owner comes ahead of protecting the public.

I think they should have closed the store and done a total forensic shelf hunt for the poisonous jam to be found.

I had to laugh about the jam. You almost have to take a hammer to open a new jar of jam or jelly that you buy today. Can you imagine how much noise the person who did this in the supermarket must have made. Maybe he/she brought a jar with them from home.

>7 Maura49: This all seemed very lackadaisical.

>9 Carol420: The way it was worded at the beginning of the book it did seem as if the poisoned jam was prepared at home. What happened to the seals on the jar?

>11 Andrew-theQM: The person preparing the jar knew “the damage to the seal had to be undetectable.” I expect it had a paper strip over it that they could steam off.
As for poor Edith, I suspect she was just glad to be able to open the jar (as Carol so rightly says, >9 Carol420:) without a struggle, so didn’t notice the lack of vacuum as she opened it.

>2 Sergeirocks: I agree