The Clockwork Witnesses

On the night of his seventieth birthday, Master Absalom Sprue is found dead at his workbench, a cup of cocoa at his elbow and the workshop bolted from the inside. The Inspector has already arrested the housekeeper. But Sprue’s automatons remember everything that passes before them, and you are his last apprentice. You have eight days before the inquest to wind them up, decode what they saw, and work out which of the eight witnesses is not telling the truth.

What’s inside

• 45 puzzles of 10 kinds, mixed in chains: mechanism ciphers (drum rolls, a pinned music cylinder, a book cipher, punched cards), gear trains, mirror writing and transpositions, sightline floor plans, logic grids, puzzle-box locks, blueprint nonograms, wound-backwards liar puzzles, alibi timelines and word searches with hidden messages
• 8 chapters, one witness each, every chapter ending in a Testimony you piece together from your answers, then a Finale at the inquest and the final Accusation
• Difficulty rising from gentle to fiendish, and every kind of puzzle explained with a small example the first time it appears
• Evidence to study: newspaper clippings, a police pocketbook, a post-obit bond, a map of the lane, letters and a supper menu
• Answer checks, a hint for every puzzle, and full solutions with the solved grids

Every puzzle has exactly one solution, checked by computer, and every grid can be solved by logic alone, without guessing.

For adults who love dark, witty mysteries, codes and ciphers, escape rooms and logic puzzles. Large 8.5 x 11 inch pages in black and white, with ink portraits of the household and the automatons.