Member Reviews
A great puzzle/story whodunnit mystery book. The puzzles weren’t too hard, and the stories kept me interested, a pleasant change.
This is such a fun collection of puzzles! It took me a few puzzles to get into it, there was some wording that I was not familiar with, but the more I did the puzzles, the easier that was to deal with. I do feel like some of the puzzles were extremely hard to solve or felt like a stretch. I enjoyed that the digital version made it very easy to go back and forth between the puzzles and the answer. Definitely something fun to do over a longer period of time instead of sitting down and solving them all in a day or two.
I love this puzzle book. It is packed with interesting stories & mysteries to solve. I love the way it is written. Highly recommend, especially if you want something that you can pick up when you have a little spare time.
Working my way through these puzzles had me on the edge of my seat.
The stories associated with each mystery are beautifully written and the details that you need to figure out who actually did it are imposed in the characters in such a way that you need to be paying attention the most minute details.
Overall really enjoyed spending some time working through these with my daughter. And letting my mind puzzle them out in the evening after work.
Do you find yourself trying to solve the whodunnits, whydunnits and what happened here's? Miss Marple wannabes and Poirot enthusiasts rejoice! This is a brilliant little compendium of sleuthing puzzles to keep even the most bumbling of detectives entertained, with a host of mysteries to be solved by you - the reader.
Dedopulos keeps things sweet and not-so-simple with these reader solved mysteries. With each one only being a few pages long, it is impossible to get bored of each mystery, and easy to remember all the key points and red herrings required to have a guess at the Mystery.
I really liked the integrated links embedded within the ebook. This meant that I oculd click through to the answer at the end of each mystery which took me directly to that specific puzzle's answer at the back of the book without me having to: A) thumb through to the end of the book; and B) see any of the other puzzle's answers by mistake. I could then click to go back to exactly where I left off. This was very useful and easy to use.
My only niggle is that some of the answers seemed a bit far-fetched and I wasn't sure they were that 'gettable' from the information provided. That being said, I enjoyed the trying to solve these mysteries and haven't seen anything like this before.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance copy. My views are entirely my own.
This book is an interesting concept. A brief description of a crime scene and possible suspects is given. The reader must look for clues in that description that lead to the guilty party. When that's been decided, they can click on the "Answer" item at the end and see if they are correct. This would be a fun gift for a true mystery buff, particularly someone who enjoys the traditional type of British mystery. It would be nice if the illustrations were a bit more colorful and attractive.
A good variety of short, entertaining puzzles to solve. Some were easier than others, but it is a lot of fun and includes helpful hints for those where I got really stuck!
With thanks to NetGalley and Arcturus for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
This book is an engaging puzzle book filled with short story-driven logic puzzles. A fun read for short moments of downtime, this book will keep you guessing "whodunit" - or how the inspectors come to their conclusions.
~Many thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review~
The perfect book for mystery fans, full of short mysteries to solve. Try your hand at being a detective. Try to pay attention to the tiniest of details to figure out the mystery. They were not that easy to solve as one really has to use their little grey cells!
I really enjoyed reading the scenario and becoming a super sleuth to find out whodunnit.
Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an advance reader’s copy for my honest thoughts.
What a fun book with short mysteries to solve! It reminds me of the 2-minute mystery books that I have always loved (but these were longer than 2 minutes). My husband and I read these aloud to each other and then tried to solve the cases together. The electronic links to move quickly to the answer and then link back to the story or to a new case were very convenient.. So why only 3 stars? Because not all the puzzles seemed fair. In the introduction, the author challenged readers to try to solve without the hints, but for some of the mysteries that is not possible. Some information was missing or located only in the ‘hints.’ It seems to me that all facts needed to solve the puzzle should be in the story itself, even if well hidden (of course) or needing specialized knowledge to understand the clue. I would have felt better (because there is ego involved in solving—or not solving—the mystery) if the text had reserved the word ‘hint’ for the actual hints and called the other information presented after the main story something like “further information the detective uncovered later.” Once I retitled the hints sections in my mind, the stories were very entertaining. This review is based on an uncorrected proof NetGalley ARC.
This book is so interesting and fun. From the engaging cover to the puzzles that are so fun to solve. I throughly enjoyed going through this book and solving the interesting puzzles.
Three stars. Wow, this book took me back! When I was little, my library had a series of books just like this for kids, with super-short mysteries. I haven’t thought about them in ages, but as a child, I devoured them, and I know they (along with Alfred Hitchcock’s Three Investigators series and Donald Sobol’s Encyclopedia Brown series) fostered my love of reading mysteries today. Whodunit Mysteries is much the same as those books, with short scenarios presenting the clues necessary to solve the crime. I had fun trying to solve the mysteries, but I felt that while many of the cases were straight-forward, others needed some convoluted jumps of logic to come to the solution which in my opinion made those a little less satisfying. The inclusion of hints was a welcome addition when a little help was needed.
I’m grateful to Arcturus Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review Whodunit Puzzles, as well as the nostalgia.
I love mysteries and I love puzzles ! If you do also this book is for you.
Thanks to Net Galley and Arcturus Publishing for the chance to preview the book and review it.
The book is so quintessentially British . This really adds to its appeal. It consists of many short mystery vignettes where the reader is presented with the facts of a case, given some hints and asked to answer a query for the case detective. It is organized into short cases which are easier to solve and longer cases. I have to say I enjoyed the short cases the most. This would be best enjoyed by a slow (maybe daily) case to review digest and savor.
One thing I really loved about the publication were the illustrations.
For the digital version the ability to tap back and forth from case to hints to solution was great as well.
A fun little book to keep the mind moving in an idle moment - not to sound crass, but the mysteries are a great length for, let's say, alone time in the washroom. I'd recommend for adults who grew up loving the Encyclopedia Brown series and, while the mysteries are solvable for younger readers, be warned that some of the mysteries are frank in mentioning domestic violence, prostitution, and drug use. It's very light, but it's definitely there. My one knock is that the solutions for several of the longer mysteries were based on information that is not shared in the short story - in one case YOU LITERALLY ARE NEVER TOLD THE INFORMATION. That frustrates me deeply. That being said, I'd recommend for mystery reader who places value on the puzzle solving and enjoys a burst of serotonin when proven right.
A book of brief short story "puzzles" that lets you solve the mystery. A few pages of a story, an investigator announces they know who did it or what happened, and you are supposed to be able to figure it out from the little information provided. I'm not big on short stories in general, and these were very, very short and read more like puzzles than stories, which I guess is the point but the "fun" in this is in the solving, not the reading. The puzzles themselves were anything from "How did the inspector know so-and-so was lying?" to "Which of the suspects is guilty?" Some of them were very obvious and others were almost forced in that they required some assumptions or leaps. Also a minor annoyance was that nearly every person in the book that was murdered was hated by everyone who ever met them, a bit repetitive. This is more something to read a couple quick puzzles here and there rather than to sit and read it straight through. 3 stars.
A fun read! The stories are short and will grab your attention. You get into the book trying to identify the criminal or crime. It’s a quick read and a fun one to escape with!
Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
What a fun book. I really enjoyed reading the murder mystery puzzles and working out who did it... or not in my case!! Don't think I'm the next Miss Marple!!!
I really enjoyed the fact that you didn't need to flick back and forward like I have done on previous digital books to find the solution, there was a fast link between the puzzles and the solutions.
Thanks to Arcturus and Netgalley for my ARC Copy. My review is my own opinion.
Ok, well, this was humbling. Turns out in no way am I ready for a career as a detective. Guess I don’t pay enough attention to details and this is all about the details. Every one of the cases offered in this book, written quaintly in a style of golden age mysteries old-timey and all, hinges on details.
Well, at least the first level cases of which there’s a majority. Once you move on to the second level, it gets more complicated and, frankly, more far-fetched and reliant on supposition and imagination. But with the first level, you just have to really closely read the testimonies.
It’s a cute book; it features three detectives, two ladies and one scrumptiously named Paddington Parnacki, who solve various cases – mostly murder or theft – through their awesome attention to detail. And the reader gets to play along and see if they can match the dedicated detectives.
All in all, I had fun with this one. Frustrating sort of ‘grrr, can’t believe I missed that’ sort of fun, but fun all the same. The cases are mostly entertaining and only ever so slightly repetitive. The writing’s surprisingly decent considering that this book technically doesn’t require such a thing.
Oddly enough, I’m really good at solving traditional contemporary long-form murder mysteries, but not these things. My sleuthing must be more attuned to dark psychology of crime instead of minute details. But either way, fun was had. Thanks Netgalley.
An interesting book and looked like a bit of fun for all would be detective book solvers. Whilst I did enjoy some of the short stories in the book.
I found there was not enough information included to be fair. I did get some right, especially in the start which were straight forward. Some of the later ones, the explanation where a bit more involved than stated.
This was a lot of fun! Some of the puzzles were really easy and others were more difficult. Great way to pass the time and feel like a detective yourself!