It has been said that I am easily distracted, that I have a tendency to get side-tracked. I would love to disagree but it’s probably true. Sometimes a trip down the rabbit hole can be good, sometimes bad but occasionally it reveals an interesting little factoid. So in the spirit of sharing – did you know?

Murdle

If the founder of a well-known online book seller had followed the lead of other notable bookstores, Waterstones for example (founded by Tim Waterstone) or WH Smiths (founded by Henry Walter Smith) we might have been buying our online stuff from Bezos or even J Bezos? Not very catchy, but the future online giants original name was even less appealing. It was first registered as Cadabra, but the name was dropped, partly because a lawyer misunderstood it for ‘Cadaver’ – not the sort of title to inspire the buying public.

Recently, whilst browsing through a local bookstore (the one where you drop a pebble into the river, not the river itself – sorry but I couldn’t help myself), I noticed a big promotion for the new Murdle book by G.T.Karber. I love logic puzzles but had never tried this series. Had I been distracted or side tracked during a previous visit to this store? Why not, I told myself and parted with my cash, leaving the store with a copy of the original #1 Sunday Times Bestselling book.

So if like me, you’ve been living under a rock, (not a pebble btw, that’s already in the river) what is Murdle? Well Murdle is a series of logic puzzles, with a murder mystery theme running throughout the book. At a basic level you need to solve clues to work out who did what to whom with what and at which location. I have completed about a third of the book and after a slow start am finding the puzzles enjoyable. BTW I believe my slow start was a result of me overthinking the problem rather than the difficulty level. Once tuned in the results started to flow. Some of the ‘exhibit’ mechanisms were too task like for my liking, but that is a very small gripe in the whole scheme of things. 40 puzzles later and it is still holding my attention. Maybe a full review is called for once complete?

If this sounds like something you (or a friend) would be interested in then I would encourage you to check out www.murdle.com Not only do they offer a new daily puzzle each day (with the hardest puzzle being on Saturday) they also offer a mini-murdle designed to help you learn the skills needed to play: Link. I am also reliably informed that there is to be a board game version of Murdle with a release date in August.

If solving a ‘murdle’ appeals, then what about solving a whole book load of murdles for free? As we get access to all sorts of ‘puzzlygoodness’ (not my word btw) we thought it might be great to share the Murdle fun and give away a few copies of the new book to a couple of lucky followers. Keep an eye out on our Facebook page (Saturday’s are always good) for a competition to win a free copy of the latest edition for you and maybe that lucky friend? You could say this is a prize to die for (taxi…).

In the meantime you could always pop in for a visit we love to chat all things puzzles or follow the links to discover a little bit more about Murdle.