Who Was in the Room?

For thirty years Detective Chief Inspector Evelyn Marsh solved every murder the same way: she drew the room. The walls, the doors, the windows, every chair and every rug. Then she worked out where each person had been when it happened. After her death in 1989 her case plans were found in her desk: fifty-nine murders, from country houses and night trains to a jazz club, a film studio, a ski lodge, a lighthouse, an auction house and a museum. The sixtieth plan is not hers. It was drawn by the police on the night she died, and it has never been solved.

How it works

Each case is a floor plan on a square grid, from 5 x 5 to 9 x 9. Read the facts (who sat on the sofa, who stood beside a window, who was north of whom) and place everyone on the plan: one person in every row and every column, and nobody on a table, a piano or a bookcase. The killer is the only suspect who was in the same room as the victim.

What's inside

• 60 original murder mysteries in six chapters, 1958 to 1989, rising in difficulty
• One case per spread: the case notes, the suspects and the numbered facts on the left, a large floor plan on the right
• A how-to guide with the rules, a furniture legend and a fully worked example
• A first-move hint, printed upside down, on every case
• Full solutions with every plan filled in

Who it's for

Adults who love logic puzzles, detective games and classic whodunits. No guessing is ever needed: every case was checked by computer to have exactly one solution. Dark and atmospheric, with no gore, no profanity and no sexual content.