My mystery puzzles mini reviews

A is for Arson Benji Patel's restaurant lies in ashes, a charred body has been discovered. Was it an accident or something more sinister? Typical alphabet puzzle. Easy mystery can be figured out just by reading the booklet. At least the two pictures are of the same difficulty. 2x500, 13" x 19" Pic1 Pic2

B is for Birthday It was his 60th, and last, birthday, but who killed the respected & feared dog show judge? A good 38th precinct homicide squad puzzle. One picture is full of text and easy, the other more difficult. The puzzle is rather clever. Pieces are of good quality and all have unique shapes. That makes putting pictures together more challenging. 2x500, 13" x 19" Pic1 Pic2

C is for Chocolate Death is no stranger to the Happydale Nursing Home but the police suspect someone is hurrying the process with poison. Two nice before and after pictures. Good easy puzzle. 2x500, 13" x 19" Pic1 Pic2

D is for Diamonds Was the South African farmer killed by wild animals, or was someone after his secret stash of precious gems? Very good one. Again, unique shapes make it interesting. With normal pieces, you have 4 possible orientations to choose; you know this side must be top, or bottom, or left, or right. No way to do that for these pieces. The story is OK, pictures are beautiful, but there is no need to look at them searching for visual clues - there are none. 2x500, 13" x 19" Pic1 Pic2

E is for Espresso John Valdez dropped dead over his morning cup of cappuccino. Was the jolt too much for this heart or did someone add a little flavor to his brew? How you don't do it: one picture is just an illustration, another contains just text. Why bother assembling them. None of the clues are visual, everything is textual - a no-no for a jigsaw puzzle IMO. Story is OK, picture is OK, but 2x500, 13" x 19" Pic1 Pic2

F is for Feline Who killed Kitty DeClaude? The only eyewitness was her pet puss. What did the cat see? Another OK 38th precinct homicide squad puzzle. 2x500, 13" x 19" Pic1 Pic2

G is for Golf As real estate dealer Richard Duffer was test-playing his brand new exclusive golf course, he didn't know it would be his last round. Worse 38th precinct homicide squad puzzle. One picture easy with all familiar text. Another has difficult to unsolvable grass part. It has standard pieces that allow false leads and indistinguishable by pattern pieces. Edit: did solve it at the second try. 2x500, 13" x 19" Pic1 Pic2

H is for Housewives The neighborhood was stunned at the accidental death of Diana Young. But judging by some of her neighbors, Di’s death might have been something else! Another 38th precinct homicide squad puzzle, where one picture is all text, so you get only one picture to assemble, really. That picture is nice, though and the story is quite funny. 2x500, 13" x 19" Pic1 Pic2

I is for Internet Rich Webster locked himself and his software development team in a concrete bunker to work undisturbed. He never came out… strangled with a mouse cord. Who is the guilty geek? Another 38th precinct homicide squad puzzle, where one picture is all text in familiar formats. The puzzle is modern and interesting, though. 2x500, 13" x 19"

Alfred Hitchcock This sinister mystery revolves around a psychopathic killer obsessed with Hitchcock's famous movies - The Birds, Psycho and Frenzy. Great one. The puzzle is difficult to solve. Watching the movies actually helps solving the puzzle. The picture contains many subtle clues. I wish someone told me "think more" when I came up with wrong answer. 1,000, 23" x 29" Pic

Da Vinci Quest Long ago a mysterious artifact that was said to grant invincibility was lost to the pages of history. Not really a mystery, but still an OK puzzle. The picture is less relevant that I would like. 1,000-2, 19 ¼" x 26 5/8" Pic

Interlude In Death The year is 2059, and NYPD Lieutenant Eve Dallas is attending a police convention when a security guard is murdered. Someone is trying to frame her and her husband for the crime. Can you help Eve solve the mystery before she takes the fall? The story is OK, but not suited for "interrrupt and solve looking at at picture". The picture is not even a crime scene or something from the story. It's like a cover illustration that puts together various elements of the story. The picture is difficult to assemble - the only challenge here - but not particular beautiful. 1,000, 23" x 29"

Curse Of The Feline Pharaoh Archaeologist Dr. Hallowell becomes obsessed with solving a 12,000 year old murder. But first he must find the secret to the cat goddess. Great puzzle. The picture should answer not one but three questions, all quite legit. Nice story to read. 1,000, 23" x 29" Pic

The Mystery At Thorn Mansion Construction mogul Harrison Thorn is dead. The death seems natural enough, but the Medical Examiner isn't convinced. Especially when he finds out about Mrs. Thorn and the butler. Selebrity author means that puzzle part is weak. They break existing story just before the end, and insert a picture that that gives away the answer in quite direct way. But, the story is interesting, and the picture is good. 1,000, 23" x 29"Pic

The Things We Do For Love While her baby has a tantrum in an unfamiliar Italian restaurant, Karen realizes she is sitting next to a powerful Mafia family. They believe she has overheard an incriminating conversation. Can you help Karen get out of this sticky situation in one piece? The lamest in all the "selebrity author" series. The story, while being good is not a detective story, there is no mystery to solve. The picture is just an illustration, there are no clues there (because there is no mystery to solve). 1,000, 23" x 29"

Always Othello New Orleans police detective Skip Langdon is at it again. This time, she's trying to solve the mysterious murder of a tarot reader. Will she need supernatural assistance to find the killer? The absolute worst puzzle in the "selebrity author" series. Even Kellerman puzzle is better. There is nothing to solve. The story is not that interesting to begin with, and finding the culprit is not really a point in it, so the usual scheme does not work at all.The picture to is OK. 1,000, 23" x 29" Pic

A Poison That Leaves No Trace Kinsey Millhone's newest case involves a death of "natural" causes, or is it something else? The best puzzle in the "selebrity author" series. The story suits the hiding of the ending very well, the mystery is difficult to solve, and picture helps a lot, while not using any textual clues. 1,000, 23" x 29" Pic

Murder on the Titanic Murder on the Titanic is a classic mystery with a challenging twist! Read the intriguing story of wealthy twin sisters who face romance, betrayal and death on that fateful night aboard the Titanic. A good one in this series. Unusually, there is a puzzle to solve, and not an easy one, with subtle clues and false lead pointing in wrong directions. 1,000, 23" x 29" Pic

Murder at St. Andrews Young, handsome Bobby MacIntrye is a man who had it all until a round of golf proved to be deadly. Great puzzle. Clues are subtle (I missed a lot), the quality of the pieces is fantastic. Pieces softly snap together and won't separate. A pleasure to assemple and solve. 1,000, 23" x 29" Pic

Too many cooks Ellie Butternut is cast as a chef in a commercial, but almost immediately things start to go wrong. Miscast characters and a set plagued with accidents might just be bad luck. Or is it? As usual in celebrity writer series, there is nothing to solve for a detective. But, the picture is nice and pleasant to assemble, and the story is interesting. 1,000, 23" x 29" Pic

Murder, Of Course Four friends, an early round of golf was par for the course, but one fine morning, the going got rough -really rough- and death turned the foursome into a threesome. It was a mystery. Martin Asher's verbal barbs could drive in deep, but would that tee someone off enough to murder him? Very nice puzzle. The picture is a blast to assemble. It is as difficult in the very beginning as it is in the very end. No easy parts, and no too difficult parts either. The story and the clue is OK, not too inventive, but no cheating. 1,000, 23" x 29" Pic

To Kill A Boss Walking int the offices of Hoope & Hollar advertising, you'd have thought they'd won a big new account. But the stuff was selebrating a different victory. The murder of their boss. After enduring yares of his abuse and duplicity, had one of them simply snapped? Or was something bigger as stake? I bought it by mistake, thinking it has 1000 pieces. I am glad I did. Smaller number of pieces did not make it simpler to assemble, just twice faster, because there are no easy places. I liked the story and the feel the bigger pieces have. These older Bepuzzleds are better quality that newer ones. 500, 20" x 20" Pic

Classic Case Of Murder Inspector Cross truly loved classic cars. And so did Derek Teasdale. But there was one significant difference between them. Inspector Cross was an officer of the law and Derek Teasdale may have been a cold blooded killer. All the inspector has to do was find proof that the death was not an accident, but a murder! A good old one. The picture with the car was so nice, I hated to disassemple it. Clues are good, and about cars. Classic indeed. 1,000, 23" x 29" Pic

Who Drilled the Dentist? No one likes visiting the dentist, but someone really had it in for Dr. Nicholas Payne. Honolulu Detective Dan Kane, assigned to the homicide, has more suspects than his son has cavities. Who drilled the dentist? That's what Detective Kane wants to know. Nice, tough picture to assemble. All pieces are grey and vague, but the result is surprisingly clear. Exotic solution did not present a challenge to me. 1,000, 23" x 29" Pic

Grounds For Murder Mystery's brewing at Spill the Beans Coffee Shop: the suspicious meetings over cappuccino, the roundtable of gumshoe regulars and the murder that shocks them all. Let your mind percolate through the evidence, then filter out the red herrings and solve "Grounds for Murder" Nice, tough picture, nice, tough John Lutz puzzle that I failed to solve. Latest from Bepuzzled is of a good quality as usual, except pieces do not lock together. 1,000, 23" x 29" Pic

Taxed To Death Meet some clever clients with some clever deductions. David Penner; He's a builder with a temper and the unfortunate numbers 1099 at the end of his social security number. Eve Baker; A hard-edged brunette in her late forties, she lives on income from her late husband's investments. Coincidentally, she resides at 1040-1099 Beechwood Boulevard. Jonathan Spence; An amateur archeologist who claimed a curious deduction for a $109910.40 donation to the Smithsonian. Can you get to the bottom line? Who will pay a hefty penalty? Strange puzzle. I could not understand the answer, it looks like something is missing. Pity, because I like the idea. I did guess many clues - some correctly, and some in a wrong way. Good picture. 1,000, 23" x 29" Pic

Taxing Murder Meet some clever clients with some clever deductions. David Penner; He's a builder with a temper and the unfortunate numbers 1099 at the end of his social security number. Eve Baker; A hard-edged brunette in her late forties, she lives on income from her late husband's investments. Coincidentally, she resides at 1040-1099 Beechwood Boulevard. Jonathan Spence; An amateur archeologist who claimed a curious deduction for a $109910.40 donation to the Smithsonian. Can you get to the bottom line? Who will pay a hefty penalty? Sounds familiar? Yes, it is 2010 remake of "classic" 1995 puzzle. Cheaper paper, new picture, almost the same text. I expected that new picture will make more sense... and it did not. In fact, old picture makes good sense now. Then, I missed "reversed fugures" on the picture. New picture does not have it, but text still talkes about it! What the new picture has instead is two 7-17 clues, but they are not mentioned in text at all. What do they mean? 1,000, 23" x 29"

Sonata For A Spy August Sonnerfeld was more than a concert violinist. He was an international spy. And when he turned up dead in a hotel room, the mysteries began to mount. Clever story with double puzzle at the end. (I did not like the second part too much, but still. Everything is OK, but... They made an experiment. It is as if, usually, there is a parameter to the computer that generated the puzzle pieces that makes piece's "arms" at least that wide. They switched that restriction off, and got strange pieces. Which is nice. Unfortunately, they also got 1 pixed wide arms that break off immediately. They also get zero width arms that are separated on arrival. The result in a puzzle with lots of holes in it. It does not look good. 1,000, 23" x 29" Pic

Foul Play & Cabernet As winemakers, Harry Bloom and Ernie Field were brilliant. As partners, they were a disaster. So different in body, mind and soul that it was a miracle they could produce anything, much less the best cabernet in Napa Valley. Their arguments were as full-bodied as their finest vintage while their hatred for each other was fueled by their love for one woman - Field's wife, Darleen. The sudden disappearance of Ernie Field, the testimony of Wino Joe and the local sheriff's suspicions. A recent game. Good picture, good story. But, I am disappointed in the quality of the pieces. They made it more plastic-y, less paper-y, and that reduces amount of paper dust to almost zero, but now the pieces do not lock in, and many are warped, so the connected parts will not stay flat. I expected better from BePuzzled. 1,000, 23" x 29" Pic

Murder Makes A Call It begins with an ex-cop driven to desperation by his unruly neighbors. He called to complain. He called to threaten. Then a blunt object stopped the ringing. But death still had their number. You'll know the victum. You'll know the murderer. But it's one of the most baffling mysteries you've ever tried to solve. The mystery is especially difficult, but a story is unusually dark for a puzzle game. Nice picture, good pieces, enjoyable puzzle from 1994. They did it well then. 1,000, 23" x 29" Pic

Ghost Of Winthrop Aunt Eliza has passed on, but she's left her fortune behind. Strange clues are left in the townhouse may lead to it. But there's ghostly competition along the way as Faith Fairchild, amateur sleuth, searches for the answers. New type of the puzzle: The picture (of some standard quilts) is the puzzle. (That makes completing it so difficult.) I did not know quilts have standards (like jazz standards). The puzzle is guessing the names of the quilts (w/o googling). Very nice. 1,000, 23" x 29"

Shop 'Til You Drop For Dudley Rongway, accompanying his wife on a shopping trip to the Shopper's Paradise Mall is definitely no bargain. Everybody is out to get him, including Mafia hitman, an intoxicated rooster, and a wife spending money like there's no tomorrow-and for Dudley, there may be no tomorrow. Who bagged the unidentified shopper on the escalator? Who's at the top of Detective Wiley Chase's shopping list of suspects? Somebody has to pay but who will it be? New for me type again. They had variety in that century: Ghost Of Winthrop is 1993, Shop 'Til You Drop is 1995. The picture is 4 frames from a security video, and you are to get the story from those frames and times stamps. Not bad. 1,000, 23" x 29"

CSI: Unbalanced Death Business owner Stewart Bradley is found dead, slumped over his desk. Was this a suicide or was foul play involved? Good puzzle, if you know not to read lab reports before trying to solve the puzzle. Those reports give you the culprit, not the solution in invisible ink. There is a lot of things (half a dozen) to notice and find on the picture! 750, 18" x 26" Pic

CSI:NY Show Stopper It's curtains for Broadway producer Bernard Kantner when he's found dead on his casting couch. UV flashlight is used to read the answer and to highlight some parts of the image. Nice. 750, 18" x 26"

CSI: Stabbing Pain Socialite Vivan Elliot is found dead in her kitchen, the victim of a stabbing. Was she killed by an intruder, or someone closer to her? Not really bad, but unexciting. Picture is too dark, and the story is so random. 750, 18" x 26" Pic

CSI:Miami The Crush The body of a man is discovered in the Everglades wearing a tuxedo, but because almost every bone in his body is broken he is almost impossible to identify. Good story, the picture contains substitution map to decode key parts or the documents in the booklet. Nothing to solve except that, so no detective work is required. Wierdly, I saw Easy Rider the night before I read the booklet, and crimes are similar. 1000, 19" x 26" Pic

CSI:Everybody Loathes Somebody Sometimes Wedding bells are tolling at the Ring-A-Ding chapel when the groom, a Frank Impersonator - drops dead at the altar. Overall poor quality. We got one piece missing, and another piece extra. (The missing and extra pieces has almost identical shapes.) Pieces are not flat, so the refuse to stick together. The picture seems irrelevant to the solution. 750, 18" x 26" Pic

CSI:Double Down Luck is not in the cards for high stakes gambler Victor Simpson. When he falls over dead at the Blackjack table with three million dollars at stake, is it a heart attack or murder? Another bad one from the "Missing Piece" series - we got three piece missing. The story does not work very well. Clues on the picture are diffult to find, but they are not interesting. 750, 18" x 26" Pic

Desktop Murder Arnold Myers, chauffer to the rich & famous, was writing a tell-all book about all the things he heard and saw. But just before his book was completed, he was found dead - a probable suicide. Or was it? Very nice puzzle. You need to read the booklet carefully, and you need to look at the picture well. The keys hidden on the picture are pictorial, not textual, as it should be. "Photos" of suspects in the booklet are nice touch. 750, 18" x 26" Pic

Art of Murder Working late into the night on an ad campaign to meet a deadline, a talented young artist is slain. As the police question the most likely suspects, Jessica puts the pieces together to draw her own conclusions. Had someone painted themselves into a corner by mixing business with pleasure? Nice puzzle. I could not find the solution to this one, my wife did. I looked and looked at the picture, but I did not look where I should... Interestingly, solution text does contradicts the picture. Solution talks about "Barbra" clue which is nowhere on the picture, and picture contains "dolly" clue that is not mention in the solution. 750, 18" x 26" Pic

Something Wicked This Way Grows Retired architect is found shot twice in the chest, in the hothouse where he bred in cultivated flowers for his elaborate garden. Another good puzzle from "The Missing Piece" series. Clues are well hidden both in the booklet and in the picture. I did not get this one, pity. The picture is difficult and kind of gloomy. 750, 18" x 26"

Cursed Cargo A professor and a group of graduate students are on an expedition in the Yucatan Peninsula. One of the students is found dead, with no obvious cause. Did their trek through sacred grounds bring on a Mayan curse, or could one of the students have done the deed? A quality puzzle from "The Missing Piece" series. Very tough to solve. I only did that after some heaving hinting. Again, the picture is difficult and dark, but you never feel like you are stuck while assembling it. 750, 18" x 26" Pic

Murder Unleashed Rose Shaw has been stabbed, and her dog Daphne has left a trail of blood from the house to a dog grooming parlor up the street. There are a number of suspects, but the clues will only point to one killer. Dog groomer Marge Henninger has cracked the case. Can you do the same? A quality puzzle from "The Missing Piece" series. Easy, but nice case to solve. No text clues, only picture, which I like. Talking about picture, this one is very light, welcome change from usual dark tones. 750, 18" x 26" Pic

Mystery At The Fairground I got this by mistake. Bits And Pieces had some unusual web contest. You were to buy the puzzle, solve the crime, write them and win prize. I was late for that, and I was suprised to find that the picture on the cover is the picture you get when you assemble the pieces. The picture is nice, but the solution is so fantastic and far-fetched... 1000, 20" x 27" Pic