OK, I just finished rereading Koko by Peter Straub, and thought I love it, there are aspects about which I’m more confused than ever.
We find out in the short story “Bunny Is Good Bread” that the Blue Rose Killer was Fielding Bandolier’s father, right? Will Damrosch was the cop who investigated the Blue Rose murders, but committed suicide and posthumously took the blame. Tim Underhill wrote The Divided Man as a fictionalization of this, with Damrosch called Charlie Esterhaz. Now, in The Divided Man, Esterhaz was the adopted son of a butcher who beat his mother to death, then beat and raped him… which is exactly what happened to M.O. Dengler, aka Koko. How did Underhill guess so exactly at what had happened to Dengler? Never really explained.
Then there’s the question of where the term Blue Rose came from… someone’s father committed the “perfect murder” during WWII. Was it Mr. Bandolier, or Mr. Beevers, or who was it?
According to Mystery, Damrosch and the St. Alwyn were in Mill Walk Key, which is in the Caribbean, but The Divided Man is set in Milwaukee… but then, when in Bunny, Mr. Bandolier is in Milwaukee, as is the St. Alwyn. That makes 3 serial killers who came out of Milwaukee, right? Dengler and the 2 Bandoliers?
I am confused. Lots of contradictory facts. Am I supposed to be this confused, or am I missing something(s)?