Crime and Puzzlement 3: 24 Solve Them Yourself Picture Mysteries [Paperback]

Lawrence Treat (Author), Paul Karasik (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1988 | Age Level: 9 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up

Detected you way through Crime and Puzzlement 1 and Crime and Puzzlement 2? Solved all the heinous crimes of You're the Detective? Well then it's time you matched your sleuthing skills against Julius Quackery, amateur detective extraordinaire, as he tries to find out: Who beaned poor Kippy Betcher, ex-jockey, and sent him on his final ride? Wealthy Robert Pickle has disappeared overboard suicide or murder? The police hold a photograph of the murdered on the way to his crime but who or what is in the picture? Read the story. Ponder the picture. Seize the pencil in fist and solve it yourself! In this devilish anthology you'll find more delightfully murderouse suspense from the blood-red pen of the criminally successful Lawrence Treat. Granny Scratch shares a mushroom stew dinner with her son Casper and wife Hecuba. Four days later Granny's dying of mushroom poisoning but her hated heirs are healthy. Granny wants to know how she was killed before she dies! Study the picture and the text, answer the questions, and then solve the mystery... Still stumped, gumshoe? (Answers are in the back of the book.) Happy sleuthing!

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: David R Godine; 1st edition (August 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879237376
• ISBN-13: 978-0879237370
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.8 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #93,307 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #68 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Entertainment > Puzzles & Games > Puzzles

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Puzzles for savvy sleuths, October 12, 2000

By 

R. Gilbert (Kenosha, WI USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Crime and Puzzlement 3: 24 Solve Them Yourself Picture Mysteries (Paperback)

Picking up from where he strayed, Lawrence Treat uses clever drawings and witty prose to befuddle the amateur sleuth in this third in his series. His is an excellent series of books that can be adapted for detectives of many ages-- I know because I use them with my students.

Some of the puzzles require good observation, others require sharp wits, and all put a lethally grand combination of pictures and storylines that are fun to read and solve. The questions at the end of each story point sleuths in the right direction.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great~, January 11, 2009

By 

C. Nakamura "Just another Mommy!" (Hawaii) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crime and Puzzlement 3: 24 Solve Them Yourself Picture Mysteries (Paperback)

I had this same book years ago and just HAD to buy another one. It's as much fun to read as I remembered. It's a great way to hone your observation skills.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "So, whaddaya gonna do?" "*I*...am gonna get to the TRUTH.", January 27, 2009

By 

racapowski (Great Falls, MT USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Crime and Puzzlement 3: 24 Solve Them Yourself Picture Mysteries (Paperback)

Bottom line: is "Crime & Puzzlement 3" the best of its series? No, 'fraid not. Is it a solid entry in a unique and witty series of quality puzzle books that previously-enthralled readers will snap up like corn chips?

Well, come on. No question so lovingly phrased is going to be answered with a "no".

You want a synopsis? You're on Vol. 3 of this series; what, did the Unisom kick in over the last 48 puzzles? OK, OK. You've got a) a crime scene, b) a list of facts, and c) a series of Pythagorean questions. You read b) and use c) to guide you through a). Basically, you're David Caruso, except you have to provide your own Shades of Justice to flip.

The series has a revolving door of illustrators - Deco-influenced Leslie Cabarga in the first, Treat's wife in the second, and Paul Karasik here. No one reaches the heights of Cabarga, but I'm afraid that art quality does over the series slightly but steadily slide toward the simplistic. Karasik's art, while perfectly serviceable and friendly, is a step further away from the first installment's panache and delightful play of light and shadow. It's still solid (and it's clear, something that couldn't always be said of the art in "2"); it just doesn't paint in the corners.

I bemoaned CP2's lack of CP1's playful macabre streak. Thank you, then, for the opener here, with the jockey who was brained with a skillet during a fatal carousel ride on Halloween. *No*, you don't see brains (just blood caked on top of his head), though the tots gathered about the corpse slumped over on the horsie looking bewildered in trick-or-treat masks compensates. Treat's sense of humor endures.

That said: I think this installment might go a touch overboard. I paused at the smug kid who has de Sade and skull lamps in his bedroom who may or may not have electrocuted his father. (That sounds worse on paper than it plays, but you can dress up the subject matter only so much.) The black comedy's not pervasive, and the great majority of the tales are completely innocuous. When it's present, though - whoa! A little too much here! I could recommend the first two volumes to cautious parents. Here - well, it might on occasion be a little too close to nightmare fodder; take the aforementioned carousel case, for example. (I didn't have problems, and I was a pretty easy-to-nightmare kid, but your mileage may vary.)

Puzzlewise, the book's quality varies. It does carry over the "crosswordese" problem from "2", where solving a few puzzles is dependent not on logic and deduction but on awareness of obscure bits of information. (I draw the line at demanding the reader be skilled in the intricacies of boat construction.) The better puzzles this time around rely not on blindsides but on good old-fashioned problem-solving and work-it-out common sense - the happy simplicity of "Upsy Downsy", the satisfying reconstructions of "Track Meet". (I'm also still irked that "Moonlight and Applesauce" got me, despite the fact that it arguably could belong to the crosswordese category.) A few solutions, though, are baldly obvious; others need a good deal of unsupported supposition.

Each "Crime & Puzzlement" book has a mascot of sorts, a sleuth who pops up in many of the stories to tie the cases together. "Crime & Puzzlement 3" invites us to spend time with the older well-to-do married couple Julius & Julia Quackery, doctor and stockbroker respectively. I liked them very much, despite the hints that Julia is less-than-faithful, but anyway; they combine the comfy familiarity of grandparents with the polished intelligence of professionals and the ascerbic wit of longtime marrieds. They provide much of the charm and life here that the previous installments' detailed illustrations did to their own volumes.

Naturally, the most constant draw, author Lawrence Treat's zippy writing, remains, though it here concerns itself more with detailing Julia and Julius's fond marital banter. (We still get some of Treat's soft Dashiell Hammett-meets-Douglas Adams establishing prose, though: "No one accused Kippy Betcher of being brainy, but the best part of whatever he had was squashed with a small iron skillet, whose last use had been to fry an egg, sunny-side up.") Overall, "Crime & Puzzlement 3" is weaker in areas, but it's still well worth a look from any mystery or puzzle fan - except those who would let a few flaws chase them away from more of a wonderful thing. And that...

:flips shades:

...would be a CRIME.

::YEEEEEAAAAAAHHHH::