The Kakuro Challenge

Kakuro, also known as cross sums, is one of the puzzles quickly growing in popularity. Like many of the other logic-based puzzles to come from, or pass through, Japan, the puzzle is based on a few simple rules. The rest is left to logic and basic math skills. Kakuro looks like a crossword with black and white boxes. But instead of filling in words, you fill in the digits from 1 to 9. Each row and column has a number to tell you what the sum of the digits is. The puzzler must find the unique solution that satisfies all of the sums. While a sum must be made up of the digits from 1 to 9 and no duplicates, the number of boxes can range from 1 (usually 2) to nine so exclusivity is less prevalent than in su doku. Fans of killer su doku, su doku with addition, will take to this one easily while straight number placement puzzlers may need to learn a few tricks. This volume contains 68 puzzles. Each is on the same size grid and seems to be of a similar complexity. The book has almost no training but does include useful tables of unique sums. Each puzzle also has one set of boxes highlighted as a possible starting place but I often find myself starting elsewhere. Although slim in size I have found this to be one of my favorite and most enjoyable puzzle books.