The Third Policeman and the Mystery of Lost

Posted on October 7, 2005

Fans of the hit television show Lost were pretty freaked out when this article appeared in The Chicago Tribune, in which Craig Wright talked about a book featured in the script he co-wrote which aired on October 5th and its clues to the mythology of the show. Wright said that the comic novel The Third Policeman by the late Irish writer Flann O'Brien "will be prominently featured at a key moment" in the third episode of Season 2.

The next thing you know, the book has hit #40 on Amazon.com's sales rankings. Not bad for a 1999 reprint of an obscure book by a small press.

Ok, we watched Episode 3 on Wednesday night and we didn't see The Third Policeman anywhere. Instead, the book we saw in a nice camera close up was Henry James' famous ghost-story novella, The Turn of the Screw. Did we miss the shot of The Third Policeman? Are the writers trying torture us? We were trying to pay attention, but there were a lot of books on Desmond's bookshelf. And what does The Turn of the Screw have to do with the show? The whole thing is starting to drive us crazy.

Update: We've been informed that we missed The Third Policeman, but it was there. In the scene where Desmond packs up his stuff to leave, you can very briefly see the book lying there as he grabs his jacket. Like John Locke, we suppose we'll have to take that one on faith.