1992 DEATH AND THE COMPASS (A Kabbalah Sage's murder begins a game of wits, superstition, & revenge)

Lönnrot is a famous detective in an unnamed city that may or may not be Buenos Aires. When a Rabbi is killed in his hotel room on the third of December, Lönnrot is assigned to the case. Based on a cryptic message left on the rabbi's typewriter—"The first letter of the name has been uttered"—the detective determines that the murder was not accidental. He connects this with the Tetragrammaton, the unspeakable four-letter name of God, and with his criminal nemesis Red Scharlach. Exactly one month later, on the third of January, a second murder takes place with the message "The second letter of the name has been uttered" left at the crime site. Predictably, the same thing happens on the third of February, with the message reading "The last letter of the name has been uttered."
Death and the Compass is a 1992 American thriller film written and directed by Alex Cox, based on Jorge Luis Borges' 1942 short story of the same name. It stars Peter Boyle, Miguel Sandoval, and Christopher Eccleston. Mexican actress Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez also appears. Detective, Erik Lönnrot, attempts to solve a mysterious series of murders which seem to follow a kabbalistic pattern. Appearances are misleading, however. By following what seem to be clues, the detective falls victim to his belief in abstract reason and to the man whom he presumes to be a criminal mastermind. In this way, "Death and the Compass" both observes and inverts the conventions of detective fiction.[1] Literary critic Harold Bloom FULL TEXT: http://art3idea.psu.edu/metalepsis/texts/death-compass.pdfBloom named it his favorite story by Borges.[2]