Nothing Is Given Away

The other books in this genre tell you how many suspects each clue eliminates. It is a kindness, and it is also a safety net.

This one does not.

NO COUNTS. NO CONFIRMATION. NO WAY TO CHECK YOURSELF UNTIL THE END.

12 cases. A register of 132 guests each. A minimal set of clues, and not one number to tell you whether you crossed off the right people.

If you miss an elimination you will not find out on the next line. You will find out when two names are left and neither of them works - and then you go back through 132 guests and find your own mistake, which is the part that actually resembles detective work.

MINIMAL CLUE SETS

Every clue in every case was tested for removal. Anything the case could survive without was deleted. What is printed is what the case cannot do without.

So there is no redundancy carrying you. Skip a clue and you will not finish.

EVERY SUSPECT IS STILL A PERSON

That is not what has been made hard. Each of the 132 register lines gives you who they are, when they arrived, which room they were seen in, what they carried, what they wore, whether they knew the house, whether they came alone.

Nothing in this book asks you to cross off every name beginning with S. The difficulty is in the deduction, not in the clerical work - and refusing to print 48,000 names is the reason it can be.

AND THE CLUES ABOUT THE REGISTER ARE HARDER HERE

Who signed directly above the killer. Who signed directly below. Which line the name is on. In a register of 132 those clues cut deep, and they require you to hold the shape of the document in your head while you work.

ONE CULPRIT PER CASE, AND IT WAS PROVED

Hard is not the same as broken, and the difference matters more here than in the easier books, because you have no counts to reassure you.

Each case was built by choosing the killer first, generating every true statement about them, then adding clues until exactly one guest survived - then re-applying every clue to all 132 suspects from scratch to confirm that exactly one does, and that it is the right one.

So when you have been at it an hour and nothing fits, the fault is yours. That is the promise, and for this book it is the selling point.

WHAT IS IN THE BACK

- Answers in a simple letter cipher, so you cannot spoil a case by accident

- The full chain for each case - every clue, and this is the only place the elimination counts appear at all

- Two pages of working space per case. Numbered pages throughout.

WHAT IS NOT IN HERE

No easy cases. No warm-up. No hints. If you want the version that tells you how you are doing as you go, that is a different book.

FOR the solver who finished the last elimination mystery in two evenings and was annoyed about it.