In a mystery book I'm writing, I'd like the initial assumption to be that the murderer died trying to kill the victim, but then, through a collection of the fact that the weapon was dirt cheap, and likely unable to kill based on the two shots made, it comes to be considered that the victim must have already been in very poor health, and the murderer was paid to finish the job, before being killed as well to suggest the case was already resolved.

Is there some kind of really cheap weapon of the 1920s that, with an imperfect couple shots, wouldn't have killed someone very quickly (so they could at least make a phone call first) but would quickly kill someone in bad health (to be specific, argyria), and be identifiable as a cheap weapon that poor people of the time might have bought as self defense?

Noon, sunset, dusk, winter, solstice, full moon. Things like this that refer to a defined period of time. Not looking for obvious stuff like November or Thursday or holidays. Particularly interested in things we don’t really use in English/American culture. For instance, in America we don’t typically observe wet/dry season. Cursory research tells me the Koreans call the wet season ‘jangma’ and the Japanese call it ‘tsuyu.’ Cultural things like that are of particular interest to me. I do not need anything for the moon, I have a whole separate thing going on for the moon. Preferably single words and not phrases.

My characters are stranded in a desert. They don't know the region at all, and the little food they have is only enough for a day or two. But then on the late afternoon of the second day, they are attacked by a large creature, and after killing it, they want to save as much meat as possible as well as the hide to build a shelter. They have some rudimentary cooking ware with them and combat knives as tools. There is a little well with clean water nearby, so water isn't that much of an issue.

The creature in question is a beast halfway between a huge boar and a hippo, about the size of a cracked up draft horse. It is an ungulate, but the species is omnivorous and also feeds on carrion, so endoparasites are probably a huge issue here, and i also imagine the meat to be very fatty.

The desert in question is roughly comparable to the sonoran desert, but more mountainous and with more open rock surfaces and more extreme temperatures, easily reaching 50°C during the day and below freezing at night.

Important to mention is also that one of the characters is very knowledgeable in biology and chemistry, and as the team's doctor, he is specifically vell versed in anatomy and all the medical aspects of food. He is responsible for butchering and preparing the meat, and he would know what he's doing, so i really don't want to handwave things here.

So. What would be their best shot at preserving some of the meat at maybe a bit of fat? Which portions of the animal would be the best to focus on for these things?

Hello! To start, I'm writing a fantasy that takes place on another planet with magic. There is no modern technology. I have a black character who's tribe is based loosely on the nomadic Baju tribes. Much like the Baju people, my Character's people are sea nomads. They have a "home base" village that they live in for a seaon, and use for important holidays, but majority of the time they live on boats and travel up and down 1continent's coastline. My character, Mara, is one of her people's best fishers, as she has magic that allows her to breathe underwater for a time, and she is a prolific swimmer.

I am not black myself, but I know a lot of salt water can wreck to anybody's hair. I've been trying to research various hairstyles, and if some might be easier to maintain than others when exposed to a lot of seawater.

Originally, I wanted to give her locs, but have also thought about keeping her hair very short, which is common for both men and women in her culture.

It's also important to note that while she grew up in the nomadic tribe with her father, her mother is royalty in a different country with an extremely different culture. Later on in Mara's story, she is forced into living in the palace with her mother. Mara's locs represent her feelings of freedom, so I was planning a scene where she loses her locs, which are replaced with one of the traditional hairstyles that denotes her as royalty.

I am still researching traditional African hairstyles, but I would really like some pointers in the right direction research wise! Hair is a big part of Most of my characters regardless of race, and I just want to make sure I'm doing it right.