Who doesn’t enjoy playing detective? Whether you’re trying to discover who stole your lunch from the staff fridge of what animal left those tracks in the snow, it’s fun to put your mental skills to good use. For those of you would like the fun of solving a crime without having to examine a body, then consider the books on this list! You can have all the fun of playing armchair sleuth without ever having to get your hands dirty. And to keep things interesting, each of these books features different types of puzzles, so even if you check out all four, you’ll still find enough variety to keep you entertained for a long time.
Murder Most Puzzling (Stephanie Von Reiswitz)
This was the book that inspired this post! You play as the assistant to Medea Throne, an eccentric (and brilliant) detective. When presented with each baffling case, Madea has the solution in hand in a matter of seconds, but can’t be bothered to explain it. So, she turns to you–her faithful assistant–to unravel the mystery and present the truth. Each mystery features full-color illustrations that are not just for show, but actually crucial for solving the case. Populated with a cast of colorful characters, the puzzles in this book are a nice balance of challenging (not not TOO challenging), and a great way to wind down at the end of your day.
Murdle (G.T. Karber)
I love logic puzzles (those ones with the fancy grids and prompts like “Elmer lives in the blue house and does not have a dog,” or “Jack’s house is to the right of Elmer’s, but is not on the corner” (with the purpose being to figure out the order of the houses, their colors, their homeowners, and their respective pets, etc.). Murdle follows detective Logico, a graduate of a special detective school who goes on to solve murders featuring a (quite literally) colorful collection of suspects, such as Baron Maroon (known for holding a grudge), Chancellor Tuscany (head of the Deduction College), and the actual president of France. While the puzzles can be enjoyed on their own, they do tell an interconnected story, which makes for a lot of fun to read!
The Alcatraz Escape Book (Charles Phillips)
It’s like an escape room in your favorite reading nook! You play Scott Wilson, a member of an underground US environmental movement called the Wilderness, who has discovered that a farming lobby is illegally using toxic pesticides to sell large amounts of land cheaply to corrupt politicians. There is enough evidence safely tucked away in a secret location to bring these criminals to justice, but failed sting operation leaves an FBI agent dead, and Scott framed for the murder. Now, you as the reader have to solve a series of puzzles, riddles, and other challenges in order to find a means of escaping the most infamous prison of all time, all the while using a code left behind by criminal mastermind Robert Stroud – the famous Birdman of Alcatraz. Will you be able to escape and bring the true criminals to justice? Or will you just be another prisoner of Alcatraz for the rest of your life? You’ll have to put your skills to the test and find out!
Cain’s Jawbone (E. Powys Mathers)
Six murders. One hundred pages. Millions of possible combinations…but only one is correct. Can you solve Torquemada’s murder mystery? In 1934, the Observer’s cryptic crossword compiler, Edward Powys Mathers (aka Torquemada), released a novel that was simultaneously a murder mystery and the most fiendishly difficult literary puzzle ever written. The pages have been printed in an entirely haphazard order, but it is possible–through logic and intelligent reading–to sort them into the only correct order, revealing six murder victims and their respective murderers. Only three puzzlers have ever solved the mystery of Cain’s Jawbone: do you have what it takes to join their ranks?
