Whodunit--You Decide!: Mini-Mysteries for You to Solve

"Whodunit - You Decide!" is a book of twelve mini-mysteries in a court room setting. The book is divided into four sections: An opening statement which explains how the book works; the court cases themselves which are short stories; jury deliberations (arranged alphabetically by story); and the verdicts (again arranged alphabetically by story). At the end of each story is a section called "Trial Witnesses and Evidence" which consists of five different pieces of evidence for each puzzle. Listed at the top of this section is a notation saying how many clues are needed to solve the puzzle. After reading each puzzle, the evidence section, and jury deliberation section readers are to decide whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty. Although there are only twelve mini-mysteries in "Whodunit - You Decide!" each puzzle is complex and challenging enough to keep you busy for hours. The courtroom setting is a unique idea and a great way of giving readers just enough clues to help solve the mysteries. The puzzles range from easy to difficult and extremely clever. The easiest puzzles are "Our Man in the Field", "The Haunted House Murder", "The Lady in the Dumbwaiter" and "Will-O'-The-Wisp". "Death and the Single Girl" is easy but extremely clever while "Trial of the Black Widow" is a puzzle that has been done in various forms in mini-mysteries which makes it very easy to solve for long-time fans of mini-mysteries. "A Witless Eyewitness" and "No Brake for the Wearys" are tough and very clever puzzles. "The Vanishing Verrocchio" is also very clever with some nicely placed clues. "One Strike You're Out" is also very clever but relies too much on coincidence. Only two of the puzzles didn't work for me: "The Hot Designer" was not very believable and "A Family Feud" was an odd puzzle. I really liked the fact that the jury deliberation and verdict sections are arranged alphabetically by story which makes it impossible to accidentally see the clues or solutions to the puzzles following the one you are working on. "Whodunit - You Decide!" is an excellent book of mini-mysteries.

The problem with the trial format is that it makes the book predictable plotwise: person A is always innocent, and a person B always has some crazy plan to frame person A. However, the crimes are just as challenging as the last edition. This work is still a far cry from a half-baked whodunit, where a case is "solved" when a suspect blurts out a lie. It's got me hooked and I'm 21, which is quite an achievement."The Haunted House murder" is the best case in this book.

Instead of mindlessly watching TV tonight, why not try a Whodunit mystery? These mysteries are fun and challenging -- think Encyclopedia Brown for an older crowd. Each one has clever twists and it's great fun to exercise your power of deduction. Each mystery is set up like a court case where the reader puts herself in the shoes of a juror. The general information about the case is given, followed by a set of clues (you don't need all of the clues to figure them out), and the answers are given in the back of the book.This book would be great on a long road trip, or as an alternative to the mundanity of watching television. I'd recommend it to parents of teenagers, or anyone who wants to sink his teeth into a mystery.

This book is a sequel to "Almost Perfect Crimes : Mini-Mysteries for You to Solve". Once again you'll need to fire up all of your little gray cells to solve this new set of 12 clever whodunits! Note that some of the puzzles in this book have also appeared in a slightly altered form at "The Case" website. Buyer beware!