I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Great gift or stocking filler!
I had a blast trying to solve some of these puzzles!

60-Second Brain Teasers Crime Puzzles: Short Forensic Mysteries to Challenge Your Inner Amateur Detective by M. Diane Vogt is a book of 64 60-second brain teasers for you to puzzle out the answer to the crime.  Luckily it has the answers in the back so you can check if you're right!

It's a fun coffee table book to dip in and out of, but I've found that you retain the details better if you're reading it, rather than hearing it as my husband wanted to join in the fun.  It is much harder to work out the answer just from listening.

This could be a fun book to pass around to other crime lovers, and see which ones you found easy, and which you struggled with.

 60-Second Brain Teasers Crime Puzzles: Short Forensic Mysteries to Challenge Your Inner Amateur Detective  was published on 15th September 2020, and is available to buy on  Amazon ,  Waterstones , and from your  local independent bookshop .

I was given this book in return for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to  Quatro Publishing .

60 second brain teasers crime puzzles is a fantastic book to get your mind working. Some easy mixed with harder puzzles - something for most ages. Perfect for long car journeys to break up the boredom or simply when you have 5-10 mins to spare.

Anyone who loves trying to solve crimes and murder mysteries will love this book. I found the crimes being discussed interesting and the answers to how the crimes were solved fascinating.

I love whodunit books and am constantly trying to work out who the murderer is, so these little puzzles were perfect for me.
Good to get your brain working!

Short whodunit puzzles for any age. Fantastic book to pick up for a few minutes here and their to test your skills. Perfect gift for any mystery lover.

I downloaded this to look at on the plane home as I hoped it would be a distraction.
Whilst I thought that some of the puzzles were good and kept me entertained it was REALLY annoying to have to go the back of the book constantly to check if you were right- especially since I was reading an ecopy so there was a constant back and forth scrolling which gave me a headache. It would have been nice if they were on the same page (perhaps upsides down so you didn't cheat) or maybe the next page rather than all at the back of the book.
A few of the puzzles I had heard before and a few could only be answered by a true psychopath.
The Puzzles were interesting but the format did leave a lot to be desired.

A great way to test your detective skills. Short puzzles so it’s a great book to pick up when you have a few minutes spare. The perfect stocking filler.

3.5 stars

60 Second Brain Teasers Crime Puzzles by M. Diane Vogt  is a book of short “crimes” that the reader has to solve.

First, let me thank NetGalley, the publisher Quarto Publishing/Fair Winds Press, and of course the author, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.


My Synopsis and Opinions:

Well, this was really interesting. I grew up loving puzzles and logic problems, and reading mysteries, so this idea of "solving" a crime really appealed to me. You don't even need a pen and paper. You read each "case", which is only about a page or so long, and then using logic, you answer the question at the bottom. There are 65 cases.

It helps if you are familiar with mystery novels and crime shows on television. Apparently I know a lot more about DNA and forensics than I thought I did. Most of the puzzles are very straight-forward (maybe too much so), but the answers are all at the back, so you can check after you think you've figured out the answer. I checked after each case, and think most of the puzzles were a little too easy, although I admit that I didn't always think of ALL of the reasons for my correct answer, so I did learn some things.

Now, what I wouldn't recommend is to sit and answer them all at once. After about a dozen in a row, I found myself a little bored. Just like a crossword puzzle book, you don't sit down and do them non-stop.

Also, I did not read this on my e-reader. I used Adobe Digital Editions on my laptop to read these, where I could more easily bookmark the puzzles and solutions, so that I could quickly go back and forth. I think it would be a little more difficult on my e-reader.

Anyway, it was a fun book to read, but I wish it had been a little more challenging, or had different levels of puzzles.

Vogt's 60-Second Brain Teasers Crime Puzzles is a great book for a rainy or cold weekend when you curl up and want something to pass the time that is neither too hard nor too easy. This book is a must-have for crime fans.

Thank you NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group – Fair Winds for the opportunity to read an advance reading copy.

Might Need a Psych Degree and More than a Minute...

This book contains 65 crime brain teasers, though I certainly wouldn't say that they only take a minute to figure out. These brain teasers are one- or two-page vignettes where something criminal is described in story format, like detectives discussing a case or someone actually witnessing criminal activity. Unfortunately, the author seems to assume that you know a fair amount about criminal psychology and forensics. Some answers were a bit of a stretch, given what the story scenarios were. Even though I have had several college-level psychology courses, I felt frustrated at times by the author's presumption of our knowledge of criminal psychopathology. Some details explained in the answers were not apparent in the stories. All in all, I found myself somewhat frustrated and annoyed by this book.

I loved the premise but gave up after the third crime scene as it was very obvious to me what the outcome was in each of the cases.


*shared to Goodreads

I want to preface this review with the acknowledgment that it must be really hard to write puzzles like this. I wouldn't know where to begin. There's a requirement to write a little story and insert just the right amount of information, and have the solution work just right. I don't think I really liked the author's writing style (and there was some weirdness about gender and race here that just left me feeling like I was reading a really old book instead of one about to be published). I grew up on the Donald J Sobel 60 second mysteries, and thirty or so years later these don't improve on them at all.

Really, the reason I didn't like this and wouldn't recommend it is that none of the answers felt satisfying. They weren't based as much on logic as they were on 'do you know this specific fact? If you do then this answer will be obvious, but if you don't, there's nothing here to help you figure it out'. It's stuff like identical twins having the same DNA but different fingerprints and various forensic details. I've been really interested in the debunking of a lot of forensics, so I would have rather had some more logic based answers, or things you could work out from smaller details. Some of the puzzles fall under the "not enough info" category, where the solution spins a complete story involving lots of details that aren't anywhere in the puzzle. Somehow, from the detail of a man using a $50 bill as a tip, I was supposed to know it was a bad forgery that still had a picture of Lincoln on it instead of Grant. No, that was not in the puzzle, I just should have known, I guess. There's one especially weird puzzle about a Native American tribe where the puzzle tries to tell you that Native Americans can't have blue eyes, and the solution is just "yeah they can", with a huge GOTCHA attitude. I mean...of course they can. That's not how genetics works and let's not even get into the controversy of using a DNA test to then claim tribe membership. It just felt really weird.

So much of what I have a problem with is difficult to talk about without showing the actual puzzle in question, so I will just say that I never felt proud of getting a solution right, nor did I ever go "ooo!" about one I didn't. I just either went "well... yeah." or "There's no way I could have known that from the info provided." I never felt satisfied by the answer.

This book is designed for people who want to test their skills as a detective. Or those who like solving puzzles. Making in an interesting twist on a traditional puzzle book.

Each scenario is a short quick read, no more than two pages. With all the clues and data you need to solve the case. If you do get stuck, all the solutions are at the back of the book.

With the short nature of the cases, it is an easy book to dip in and out of. Or flick through and quickly solve a crime.

The nature of the book and the solutions being at the back of the book, does make it awkward to navigate if the book on reading on am electronic device, a physical book would be better.

(Reviews left on Amazon UK and Goodreads).

WOW, I loved this book.

I read 2-minute mysteries when I was young, and it made me think of them but in an up to date way with the rise of Forensics. The Crime Puzzles are short and do get you thinking.

The book could be read in one sitting or dipped into at various times. It would be great for a Crime Solving Party.

The only bit I didn't like was the fact that with the digital book I had to scroll down to get to the answers.

Thanks to Netgalley and Quatro Publishing for the ARC.

My review is my own opinion.

I used to love books like this when I was younger - short stories where you solve the mystery - so I asked for this book from NetGalley and was delighted to have gotten an ARC. These stories are definitely short and make you think. Unfortunately about a quarter to a third of the stories are not solvable with the information given; you need to have specialized knowledge in order to guess the correct solution.
I didn’t count this against the book in my review but I would highly suggest getting this book in the physical form since flipping back and forth between stories and solutions in the ebook format is a pain.

Three stars
This book came out September 15th
ARC kindly provided by Quarto Publishing Group
Opinions are my own

Always dreamed of becoming a detective or private investigator trying to put together the clues to identify, locate and apprehend a criminal or work out the motive in a baffling case? Well, now you can from the comfort of your own home in a series of 65 crime-based brain-teasers that require you to piece together the puzzle from forensics through to DNA analysis, toxicology through to pathology. Employing and combining the skills and concepts of gut instinct, logic, perceptiveness, judgement, and analysis, each of the short forensic mysteries are independent of one another and vary in difficulty meaning there is something to suit all ages and abilities.

Using a keen eye for intricate detail, the puzzler must assess each condensed tale of greed, revenge or even good old depravity and using deductive reasoning as well as the clues and forensic details throughout the story answer the challenging question related to the crime which is posed at the end.

An original and unique book catering to the crime connoisseurs out there. Fun, simple and relatively lighthearted, this is a book I thoroughly enjoyed and one that can be dipped in and out of whenever the feeling takes you. Recommended to those with an interest in crime-solving techniques, crime fiction and true crime cases and/or those seeking something different to tax the brain a little. I felt it was accessible with well thought out situations to investigate so if this intrigues then grab a copy; to be quite frank, it would be criminal not to! Many thanks to Fair Winds Press for an ARC.

Being a big reader of crime thrillers, I pride myself in trying to figure out whodunnit... well, this book was full of little pocket-sized activities that challenged me and kept me working out who and why.

It got me thinking and we even spent some time as a family working through the clues and see who could get the correct answer.

This tickled my curiosity and once I got going, I kept telling myself that I would do just one more, until there were none left!

60-Second Brain Teasers Crime Puzzles is a fun book. I have a couple people in mind that just may end up getting this book as a little Christmas gift! The puzzles were prefect to get you thinking, but not so hard that you get frustrated and want to walk away from the book.

Really cool little puzzle book. I teach a forensic psychology course and so i like the thought of giving these puzzles as warm ups to a class as a way in to talking about crime. The puzzles may not be real, but it will get them thinking!

Some of them are easier than others, so it may not be a total challenge, but enough to keep you interested. I hope more in the series appear!