Puzzle guide A–Z
New to bridge puzzles, nonograms or truth-teller riddles? Here's how each type works in a sentence or two, and which Owlbrook books feature it. Every book also teaches its puzzles from scratch with a worked example.
Read the clues, then use a grid of crosses and dots to match people, places and objects until only one arrangement fits. The last fact left standing names the culprit.
Found in: Whodunit? Cozy Mystery Logic Puzzles, The Matchbook Murders Also inside every Owlbrook Grim Tales book.
A message scrambled by a rule: shifted letters, swapped symbols, keywords or grids. Work out the rule and the words appear.
Found in: The Nightshade Ciphers, The Clockwork Witnesses, Seven Nights Dead
Place every suspect in a room of the floor plan so that every numbered fact comes true. The killer is the one left alone with the victim.
Found in: Who Was in the Room? Floor plans also appear in the Owlbrook Grim Tales.
Read the statements, receipts, timetables, maps and phone logs, catch the lie, and name the real killer.
Found in: Case Reopened
Line up who was where, and when, minute by minute, until one alibi breaks.
Found in: Locked in the Waxworks, The Crooked Carnival, The Undertaker’s Casebook
Some speakers always tell the truth and some always lie. Work out who is who from what they say about each other.
Found in: Ghosts Who Lie Lying witnesses also turn up in The Crooked Carnival and The Undertaker's Casebook.
Fill the grid so every row, column and box holds each number once. Variants add a twist: letters instead of numbers, diagonals, jigsaw-shaped rooms, odd and even squares, or cages that must add up.
Found in: The House of Thirteen Rooms Letter sudoku also appears in Locked in the Waxworks.
Place candles on white squares. Each candle shines along its row and column until a wall stops it. Light every square, never let two candles shine on each other, and match the numbers on the walls.
Found in: Candles for the Moth Queen
Join neighboring dots to make one closed loop that never crosses or touches itself. A number in a square says how many of its four sides the loop uses.
Found in: One Unbroken Thread
Link numbered islands with straight bridges, one or two at a time. Each number says how many bridges touch that island, bridges never cross, and every island must end up connected.
Found in: Across the Mire
Fill the grid with towers of different heights, each height once per row and column. The numbers around the edge say how many towers you can see from that side, because taller towers hide shorter ones.
Found in: The Giant’s Towers
Place stars (in our book, dancing fairies) so every row, column and outlined region holds the same number, and no two ever touch, not even at a corner.
Found in: The Fairy Rings
Shade the sea and leave the islands white. Each numbered island must be exactly that many squares, the sea must be one connected body, and no 2 × 2 block may be all sea.
Found in: The Dragon Isles
Fill the white squares with digits from 1 to 9 so each run adds up to the clue beside it, with no digit repeated within a run.
Found in: The Dwarven Ledgers
Attach one tent (in our book, a unicorn) beside every tree. They never touch each other, even diagonally, and the edge numbers count them in each row and column.
Found in: The Unicorn Glade
Numbers beside each row and column tell you how many squares to shade, and in what groups. Satisfy every clue and a picture appears.
Found in: Picture Reveal Nonograms Blueprint and memory nonograms also feature in the Owlbrook Grim Tales.
Circle every word on the list. The letters left over, read row by row, spell out the punchline to the joke on the page.
Found in: Punchline Word Search
Clue words have already been played and marked: right letter in the right place, right letter in the wrong place, or not in the word. Use the marks to deduce the one hidden word.
Found in: Five-Letter Word Detective
Find the one path from the outer gate to the center of a round maze, then color the ornamental rings.
Found in: Mandala Mazes
A run of mixed puzzles where each answer becomes a code, a key or a clue for the next. Each chain ends in a deduction, and the final one names the killer.
Found in: Locked in the Waxworks, The Crooked Carnival, The Clockwork Witnesses, Seven Nights Dead, The Undertaker’s Casebook
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