Part one
Open and Shut
Three categories, a compact grid, and most of what you need stated plainly. The right place to learn the method.
The five-property collection
Every hotel keeps a different file.
Five standalone volumes. Five remarkable properties. Sixty story-led logic-grid cases in every book.
Mystery fiction meets logic
The file is Margo’s. The solving is yours.
Step inside a remarkable hotel, read what happened, and test every fact against the grid. Each volume holds 60 story-led cases with one answer you can prove.
A new case every morning
One file a day, free, no account.
A short case from the same evidence banks as the books: four people, four places, four things that were found. Mark the grid, check your answer, and come back tomorrow for the next one.
Inside every case
From short mystery to closed file.
These are real pages from Checkout Time, not a simplified demonstration. The story sets the stakes; the complete evidence makes the answer fair.
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01
Read the case
Meet the guests, enter the property, and learn what went wrong. Every puzzle begins as a proper short mystery.
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02
Follow the evidence
Margo gives you the complete list of facts she can stand behind. Mark the grid and rule out what cannot fit.
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03
Prove the solution
Use the final charge to name the one person the evidence supports, then check the full solution in the back.
“A puzzle you cannot prove is only a guess with boxes around it.”
The Five-Star difference
Nothing turns on a fact you were never given.
Each case is built to a unique solution, then checked against every other possible arrangement. If a second answer survives, the case does not go in the book.
- 60 short mysteries in every volume
- Generous grids with room to write
- Complete solutions in the back
- Three difficulty levels that build in complexity
The case file deepens
It opens gentle. It does not stay that way.
Every volume moves through three parts. The grids below are authentic interior pages from the first book.
Part two
Contested
A fourth category enters the file. The clues begin describing people and evidence rather than naming them outright.
Part three
Total Loss
Fewer plain facts and a full illustrated dossier. Now the clues can reason about whole groups at once.
Meet Margo Pike
She assembles only what she can prove.
Margo Pike works contested claims for Wexlar Mutual, insurer of luxury hotels and very little else. She writes down what will hold, hands the file to you, and gets out of the way.
Each volume brings a new property, a new cast, and 60 mysteries for you to close.
Choose your edition
The same cases, two ways to solve.
Standard and large-print paperbacks follow the same mysteries in the same order. Choose the format that suits your reading and writing space.