Case Reopened

Calder Bay, 2026. You are the newest investigator in the police department’s Cold Case Review Unit, and Lieutenant Dana Whitlock has put twenty old murder convictions on your desk, from a waterfront diner in 1981 to a food-truck kitchen in 2016. Every person convicted swore they were innocent. Eleven of the cases were closed by the city’s legend, Chief of Detectives Walter Brand, “the man who never lost a case,” who was buried this spring with full honors.

Each file is a four-page evidence packet: the case as the jury heard it, a letter from the person who went to prison, and the exhibits the original detectives had, or should have had. Typed witness statements. A medical examiner’s time-of-death window. Receipts, bus and ferry timetables, street maps and floor plans, phone records, alarm printouts and security logs. Records don’t lie. People do. Build the timeline, work out who could really have been at the scene, and answer three questions: Who did it? Which exhibit clears the convicted person? Which exhibit exposes the killer’s lie?

Inside the files

• 20 cold-case murder files, 1981 to 2016, rising from one clean contradiction to deep two-step cases, plus a sealed final file
• A how-to guide with a fully worked practice file
• A findings worksheet with a timeline grid and an upside-down hint for every file
• Step-by-step solutions that cite the exhibits, and what really happened in every case
• A story that runs through the whole book and ends with a case of its own

For adult mystery fans, armchair detectives and escape-room players who like their puzzles dark, realistic and fair: grim, but never gory. Every file was checked by computer, so exactly one person could have done it, and everything you need is printed on the page. Large 8.5 x 11 inch pages.