Dead on Set

Sixty murder mysteries you solve with a pencil, on the floor plan of a Hollywood film set.

Every case happens at Larkspur Pictures, a made-up film studio in Culver City, between 1934 and 1959. Someone has died on a set: a jungle, a submarine, a Roman palace, a rocket ship, a casino. You get the floor plan of the place, everyone who was there, and the script girl's notes about where each of them was standing. Put every person back on their exact square, one person in every row and every column, and the one person left alone in a room with the victim is the killer.

Who it is for

Adults who enjoy a mystery and a logic puzzle, including anyone who has never done one like this before. There is no general knowledge, no arithmetic and no guessing. It is cozy rather than gruesome: nobody's death is described in any detail. Good for one solver, or two at the kitchen table.

What you will be able to do

• Read a floor plan by its squares, rooms and walls, and know exactly what "beside", "north of", "alone" and "in shot of a camera" allow.
• Use seven solving moves, taught one at a time with a worked example before you need each one.
• Work up from 5 by 5 plans with five people to a 10 by 10 finale with ten.

Inside the book

• The rules and how to read a plan, with diagrams, and a table of every kind of note and exactly what it means.
• Your first four moves, each shown on a small plan with pencil marks.
• Case 0, solved with you: a small case worked through move by move, with the plan drawn again after every move.
• 60 cases in four "reels", one for each era of the studio: 1934 (5 by 5 and 6 by 6), 1942, 1951 and 1959 (up to 10 by 10). Each reel opens with a page on what is new, and Reels Two to Four each teach one new move with a before-and-after example.
• Every case on one page: the story, everyone who was there and their notes, the plan with a key to everything drawn on it, boxes to write in where everyone was, and links to its hints and solution.
• A cast that runs through the book: eight studio regulars turn up in cases all through the 25 years, and all of them are on the top floor the night of the last case.
• Hints for every case in three rungs: where to look; the first moves in full; and a checkpoint picture of the plan about halfway through.
• A full solution for every case: the solved plan, who did it and why, and every move in order with its reason. Each time someone is placed, the solution lists every other square their note allowed and why it was ruled out.
• A difficulty rating on every case, a chart of the whole book, and a case log to tick off.

Every case checked

Each case was checked by a program that tried every possible arrangement of the people and confirmed that exactly one fits all the notes and the three rules. A second program then solved every case using only the moves the book has taught by that point, with no guessing; its moves are the printed solutions.

Your file

• Dead on Set (PDF, 158 pages, color, landscape US Letter), with bookmarks, a linked contents page, and links from every case to its hints and solution and back.

Good to know

• Print the pages, or write on them in any PDF app with a pen tool. They are not fillable forms.
• On A4 paper, print with "fit to page".
• American spelling.
• Everyone and everything in it, the studio included, is made up.
• This is a PDF download. No physical book is shipped.