Twelve Small Cases: a page from the printable

Twelve Small Cases: another page from the printable

Mystery · Large print

Twelve Small Cases

Mystery puzzle book: twelve short name-elimination cases from one small town, 1958 and 1959. In each case 160 people signed a ledger, something small went missing or turned up, and 7 or 8 clues strike out every name but one. One case is twenty minutes at a table of four, or under an hour on your own.

See price on Etsy

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

Also: 12 cases, 160 names each, 92 clues in all; no violence anywhere: a library book, a pie plate, a fiddler’s bow, a paper crown, a raffle stub
Players: 1 to 4 a case; pass the book around a table or solve alone
Time: about 20 minutes a case; under an hour on your own
You need: pencils and a ruler; no scissors, no app, no host
Print: US Letter and A4; black ink is enough
Print size: Standard ledgers 10 pt (65 pages); Large Print edition 16 pt (102 pages)

At the table

You read the first clue of Case 1 aloud: “The culprit signed in for table 14 or lower.” Pencils move down the book-sale ledger and someone calls the count: 95 still standing. Twenty minutes later, one name is left, and there are eleven more cases in the book.

The twelve cases

The Library Sale Ledger · The Pie Table at the County Fair · The 7:40 to the City · The King’s Paper Crown · The Fiddler’s Bow · The Signature Square · The Silver Scoop · The Weigh Slip · The Town Meeting Gavel · The Harvest Parade Ribbon · The Hamper on the Fair Bus · The Winning Ticket

How the clues work

Each clue rules people out, never in. Three from the book:

“The culprit signed in for table 14 or lower”: strike out everyone at tables 15 to 24.
“The culprit’s first name does not end with a vowel”: Helen stays, Anna is struck out.
“The culprit does not live on Birch Lane, Maple Street, Mill Street or River Road”: strike out those four streets, nobody else.

Every reading rule (strictly fewer, through, double letter, share a letter) is spelled out once, up front, on the How to Play page with an example.

What you get4 files

Standard edition, US Letter (65 pages) and A4 (65 pages)how to play, then for every case its story, clues, a count line and a 4-page ledger of 160 names
Large Print edition (zip, Letter and A4, 102 pages each)the same twelve cases, each with its own clue chain at 16 pt, 6 ledger pages a case
Solution Packs (zip, 4 PDFs)one page a case with the counts after every clue first and the answer and ending below; a Twelve Cases Solved certificate; the Gazette’s molasses cookie recipe

Why it works

In every case exactly one name survives all the clues: checked by computer 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 ledger page (“Check: clue 1 leaves 21 of the 40 names on this page”), and the case page has check-points pre-filled every third clue, so a missed name shows up at once, without seeing the answer.

Made for: Puzzle evenings, book clubs, church fellowship hours, waiting rooms, long train rides and family tables. Twelve short evenings instead of one long one.