MURDLE VOLUME 1 - G. T. Karber


 I enjoy puzzles of many different varieties. I had not heard of 'Murdle' before this but essentially this is a combination of the game of Clue and a Sherlock Holmes micro story. With suspects, possible murder weapons, potential locations, and/or motives plus some very brief hints, readers are meant to combine the logic of what's know with deductive reasoning to identify the killer (or killers?) in 100 different mystery word puzzles.

I will admit right off the bat that I did not do all 100.  I didn't even do half of these, but I did so some random sampling through all the categories (Elementary, Occult Medium, Hard Boiled, and Impossible). I did not get any correct in the Impossible category (of course not ... they were impossible!) and only one correct in the Hard Boiled (of five).

The Elementary puzzles were, as expected, pretty easy and the Hard Boiled only a little bit more difficult.

Each mini mystery comes with a grid printed in the book to help the reader-detective keep track of the clues and deductions.

It is very important to note that this is NOT a logic puzzles in the strictest sense of the word.  You will not be able to declare a solution based solely on known facts.  You will have to use deduction and reasoning and just a bit of general insight to the human psyche. Sometimes you have to make some pretty big leaps of supposition.

While the answers I read all made sense, getting to these is not straightforward.  I suspect that author G. T. Karber could legitimately make many of these suspects into the killer of their story - meaning a wrong answer could be right - just not the answer that Karber chose.

My ARC was a digital copy and I downloaded and printed out the puzzles that I tested (which is one of the reasons I didn't complete the whole book).

There is a section of the book for additional hints for each mystery and I did make liberal use of this section.

This is a great way to keep the mind active and a nice addition to the slate of crosswords, Sudoku's, and word search puzzle books on the market.

Looking for a good book? Murdle, Vol 1 by G. T. Karber is puzzle book for fans of Clue and Sherlock Holmes mysteries. With varying degrees of difficulties, there should be something here for everyone.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

4 stars

* * * * * *

Murdle Vol. 1

author: G. T. Karber

publisher: Griffin

ISBN: 9781250892317

paperback, 384 pages

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