A Most Puzzling Murder
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
How do you solve a murder that hasn’t happened yet?
Destiny Whip is a former child prodigy, world-renowned enigmatologist and very, very alone. A life filled with loss has made her a recluse, an existence she?s content to endure until a letter arrives inviting her to interview for the position of Scruffmore family historian. Not only does an internet search for the name yield almost nothing, it?s a role she never applied to in the first place!
After she decodes the invitation?s hidden message with ease, the promise of her family secrets being revealed is too powerful a draw for the orphaned Destiny, who soon finds herself on Eerie Island. It?s a place whose inhabitants are almost as inhospitable as the tempestuous weather. The Scruffmores themselves turn out to be not much better, a snarled mess of secrets and motives connected by their mistrust for one another.
Their newly arrived guest proves to be just as much an enigma to them as they are to her. While Destiny slowly works to unravel the mysteries hidden throughout the ominous castle, she struggles to interpret disturbing nightly visions of what is to come. In the midst of cryptic ciphers, hidden passages, and the family?s magical heritage and line of succession, Destiny is certain of two things: one of the Scruffmores is going to die and she?s running out of time to stop it.
Interspersed with riddles and puzzles that both Destiny and the reader must solve, A Most Puzzling Murder is a one-of-a-kind mystery that will leave you guessing and gasping until the very last page!
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Marais (The Witches of Moonshyne Manor) serves up an entertaining interactive whodunit peppered with riddles and choose-your-own-outcome elements. Socially awkward 21-year-old Destiny Whip has long taken solace in solving puzzles and mysteries alongside her fellow members of the Council of Enigmatologists. One day, she's contacted by mysterious Mordecai Scruffmore, who invites her to Scruffmore Castle on Eerie Island to compete as one of two finalists for a coveted position as his family's historian. Destiny is surprised, considering she never applied for the role, but she eagerly accepts, harboring suspicions that Mordecai might be her long-lost biological father. After she arrives, she's haunted by visions that someone in the family will die, and she sets out to solve that mystery while digging into her own past. Readers affect which clues they get by choosing which chapter to read next, and are tasked with solving a series of brainteasers (answers can be found at the back of the book, for the less puzzle-inclined). There's some subpar prose (" ‘No, my lord,' his butler rasps, his voice branded with agony as the stench of sulfur seasons the denial"), but for the most part, Marais's execution matches her ambition. This is pure catnip for armchair sleuths.
