Thanks to Random Things Tours and Laurence King Publishing for my invitation to join the blog tour for this puzzle book based on the Queen of Crime’s best-loved novels.
Opinions, as always, are entirely my own.
From the Publisher:
Can you work out whodunnit, with what and why like Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot? Put your armchair detective abilities to the ultimate test…
Do you have the flair, order and method of Poirot,
or the unassuming, shrewd intelligence of Miss Marple?
You’re going to need it…
A mystery is afoot. With a missing librarian and 100 perplexing clues left behind, can you solve the mystery and follow the trail of the crime?
Brush off your moustache, collect your knitting needles and put your little grey cells to good use with this puzzling series of events.
Immerse yourself in the world of Agatha Christie.
My Review:
What’s not to like? Agatha Christie and puzzles? Sounds like a match made in heaven to me, especially when the book is produced by the brilliant Laurence King Publishing who are also responsible for some beautiful literary jigsaw puzzles (including an Agatha Christie collection).
I was intrigued by how the book would hang together, but it actually works well – there’s little bits of narrative and a selection of puzzles arranged around a number of the most famous and popular of Christie’s books. It’s a book that you can easily dip into whether you know everything about Christie’s writing or whether you know absolutely nothing.
The puzzles themselves are varied and engaging – some (the word searches and gridwords) are quite easy, but there’s some really tricky ones in there too. I love logic puzzles and I was well served with some fiendish tests of reasoning. I liked the fact that the puzzles were themed too, e.g. lots of train-related puzzled for the ‘4.50 from Paddington’ chapter, word puzzles for ‘The ABC Murders’, hieroglyphics and pyramid-puzzles for ‘Death on the Nile’. The puzzles were varied and generally well explained (I only found one where the instructions baffled me!)
There is a final puzzle that brings together a solution to the over-arching story by asking you to revisit some of the puzzles. I love this idea, but haven’t managed to solve it yet because the puzzles themselves are keeping me very busy. There’s certainly plenty to do in this book!
This would make a great Christmas present for the puzzle fans in your life. Obviously, the core audience will be Agatha Christie fans who also like puzzles, but I did a few of these with my teen daughter and they were accessible to her, especially the crosswords, word searches and word grids. There’s so much variety that everyone will find something to enjoy. It’s a nice, gift-able book (and the answers are in the back for those moments when you’re completely stumped!)
Highly recommended!
About the Author:
Born in Torquay in 1890, Agatha Christie became, and remains, the bestselling novelist of all time. She is best known for her sixty-six detective novels and fourteen short story collections, as well as the world’s longest-running play, The Mousetrap. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and a billion in translation too. Agatha Christie Limited (ACL) has been managing the literary and media rights to Agatha Christie’s works around the world since 1955, when the company was set up by Christie herself. The company is managed by Christie’s great-grandson, James Prichard. Follow Facebook @OfficialAgathaChristie, Instagram @officialagathachristie and X @agathachristie to keep up to date.
