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[booba]

Alexa's email for those that didn't get it:

Quote:

As you know, I received the pass phrase: No Exit, No Escape. I then flew to New York, went to to the NYSE, and delivered the pass phrase to the mysterious woman who promised to give me the chess piece. I won't go into detail about how I located her once I found her, but it will be important to share another time. So, she gave me a piece. It's very...odd. More info in the next letter, as I have a picture but my phone is dead so I can't upload it just yet. I took the chess piece to Moira and her uncle, at which point he gave me a ticket back to San Jose and a reservation at another hotel. On the advice of my fellow searchers (too many to name--but thanks for everyone who emailed me the address of the Tech Museum of Innovation), I flew BACK to San Jose (I'm starting to lose track of which time zone I'm in), this time with Moira along, and we hoofed it from our hotel over to the museum right before the 5:00 P.M. closing time. Well, upon presenting the chess piece at the ticket counter, I was informed by the girl there that someone named Monica told the workers at the ticket counter to be on the lookout for the piece. She said that we should come back tomorrow and present the piece to Monica in person. Which we plan to do. Meanwhile, Daphne has posted new challenges or puzzles to the blog. I want to remind everyone that she does NOT keep me in the loop about these. I am a "puzzled" as you, so to speak. I know this letter has not done a good job of illuminating much of anything, so I will try to write something more coherent tomorrow after our second trip to the museum. -Alexa

Nothing on the cities challenge....... https://streeturchinrainflower.wordpress.com/

[Billy Brown]

A potentially interesting point: the last line of Alexa's email includes the word 'illuminating', while her latest tweet says 'I am in the dark about these. Help?'

Is she trying to steer us in a certain direction for these puzzles with this light and dark theme?

[booba]

I stumbled upon the Author password, which possibly is a clue to the Cities password?

[Billy Brown]

Still struggling with the 'Cities' password. Daphne seems to be trying to hint at something with her replies to a tweet where I mentioned that I was a little stumped. Firstly this one:

[CCS]

I thought the connection might have to do with volume of sales, perhaps by category. The "genres" clue seemed to support this. That led me to consider "A Tale of Two Cities," which tops many lists of this sort. Dickens seems to be on point, but I have tried every combination of cities and words that I can think of in the "Cities" clue, without success.

[booba]

Recent email:

[phenexfirf]

I emailed Alexa with a list of the genres I had come up with for each book:

"Dune" - Science-fiction
"Lord of the Rings" - Fantasy
"And Then There Were None" - Mystery
"A Walk to Remember" - Romance (or Drama)
"Presumed Innocent" - Crime
"The Shining" - Horror
"The Hunt for Red October" - Thriller

I even mentioned the clue of the first initials being important since they were bolded. She emailed me back:

[catherwood]

[phenexfirf]

Thanks, catherwood! Sometimes I just tend to overthink a bit

So, yeah...that seems to lead to the solution to the "Author" post, which was already known (from good guessing, I think). So the final clue we have is simply:

[booba]

Excellent sleuthing people!
It could lead to Alexa's next two destinations being some of the several Paris and London's in the US. The only clue is "not in California."
Alexa does have that map given to her by Monica.

Some states with nearby Paris and London's

Arkansas -41 miles
Kentucky -89 miles
Ohio -164
Texas -383 (everything's big in Texas)

EDIT to add Twitter post: So London and Paris USA it is.

[Thecactigod]

Any new info?