The Twelve Cases of Christmas

Who it's for

Puzzle lovers and cozy-mystery readers who want a Christmas book to solve rather than just read. On the nineteenth of December the snow closes the road into Tinselby, a little made-up town, and nobody can leave until it is cleared. Over the six days to Christmas Eve, twelve small mysteries need solving, and you'll meet Nana Hester Pim and Sergeant Winifred Tolley along the way.

It is a casebook: cozy crime in a Christmas setting, with a register of suspects for every case and clues that rule people out until one name is left.

Inside the book

• How to solve a case, then Reading a clue exactly, with rules such as "before 4:30" means 4:29 or earlier.
• Twelve dated cases, in order from 19 December to Christmas Eve, getting harder as the week goes on: 40 suspects in the first, 1,500 in the last, 5,550 in all, and no name used twice. Among them are The Prize Pudding Recipe, The Star from the Town Tree, The Runaway Reindeer, Marley's Missing Knocker, The Golden Bauble and The Night Santa Went Missing.
• A clue ladder as well as a suspect ladder. Case 1 uses plain clues only; the trickier kinds arrive later.
• Registers sorted into blocks, by street, table or team. Clue 1 is always about the blocks, so your first move crosses out whole pages.
• Two checkpoints in every case, so one slip never has to spoil the solve.
• Solutions at the back: the row number first, then the count after every clue, the rows still standing before the last clue, and the ending of the story.

How to use it

• Follow the calendar, if you like. The cases are dated in order, so the book can run alongside your own week before Christmas.
• Start at case 1. It takes about ten minutes and shows exactly how the clues are worded.
• Use a pencil and a ruler. A ruler under each row keeps your place in the long registers.
• Check the row number first. It comes before the name, so you can confirm your answer without reading on.

How it compares

A Christmas mystery novel lets you guess along with the detective; a casebook asks you to prove it, one crossed-out row at a time. This one climbs gently. The first case has 40 suspects and the last has 1,500, 5,550 in all, with no name used twice. Every case has two checkpoints, and every solution gives the remaining-suspect count after each clue, so you can check your progress clue by clue. For a gentler evening, try the Christmas word search; for logic grids all year, The Pennyfold Deduction Club.

Frequently asked questions

See it on Amazon