Mystery · Large print

Case File No. 2: The Christmas Star

Christmas detective game: 2,000 guests signed the register at the 1958 Christmas Eve carol service, and one of them carried the carved star out under their coat. 13 clues, taken one at a time, strike out every name but one.

See price on Etsy

Instant PDF download on Etsy. You print it at home; nothing is mailed.

Players: 1 to 6, with a Team Sheet for groups
Time: about an hour at a table of four; 3 hours or more alone
You need: pencils and a ruler; no scissors, no app, no host
Print: US Letter and A4; black ink is enough
Print size: Standard register 10 pt; Large Print edition 16 pt

At the table

You read the first clue aloud: “The culprit sat in pew 14 or lower.” Pencils move down the register and someone calls the count: 1,177 still standing. An hour later, one name is left.

Nobody in this town would steal from a church on Christmas Eve. So it was not stealing. Find out what it was.

How the clues work

Each clue rules people out, never in. Three from this case:

“The culprit sat in pew 14 or lower”: strike out everyone in pew 15 and up.
“There is no letter S anywhere in the culprit’s last name”: Harper stays, Simmons is struck out.
“The culprit’s last name begins with one of the letters A through I”: strike out J to Z.

Every reading rule (strictly fewer, through, double letter, share a letter) is spelled out on the How to Play page with an example, so there is nothing to argue about at the table.

What you get5 files

Standard edition, US Letter (51 pages) and A4 (47 pages)letter, story, how to play, 13 clues, the 2,000-name register, Detective’s Log, Team Sheet
Large Print edition (zip, Letter 42 and A4 39 pages)the same case, its own 12-clue chain over 800 guests
Quick Case edition (zip, Letter 26 and A4 25 pages)the 800-guest chain at 10 pt
Fenton’s cocoa recipe

Why it works

Exactly one name survives all 13 clues: checked by program twice, the second time on the finished PDF. Leave any one clue out and two or more names survive, so there is no guessing and no dead end. A count line is printed on every page of the register (“Check: clue 1 leaves 28 of the 48 names on this page”), and the Detective’s Log has check-points after clues 3, 6, 9 and 12, so a missed name shows up at once, without seeing the answer. The answer itself has been hiding in plain sight since page two; the Solution Pack says where.

Made for: Christmas parties, church fellowship hours, book clubs and family tables. No violence: a missing star, a hall full of witnesses and one quiet culprit.