How a murder mystery word search works

Kettle Lane ·

A regular word search asks you to find a list of words. A murder mystery word search adds a small story with a crime in it, and hides the answer to the crime inside the grid. You find the words, and the letters nobody used spell out the culprit.

Here’s how it works, using a real case from our book Murder Mystery Word Search. (This explains one case from early in the book. The other 119 stay unspoiled.)

Case 3, The Missing Lobsters: the story, three suspects, the letter grid and empty answer boxes

Step 1: Read the case

Every case fits on one page. In The Missing Lobsters, forty pounds of lobster vanish from the harbor master’s locked tank. The only key hangs on a nail in his office, and three people were around that morning: the Deckhand, the Cook and the Clerk.

The words printed in bold in the story are the clue words: LOBSTER, TANK, NAIL, OFFICE, MORNING, DECK, LETTERS, LEDGER, FLOOR, CRUMB, COPY and CAPTAIN. They are also the word list under the grid, with tick boxes.

Step 2: Try to name the culprit

Each story hides one telling clue. Here, Mabel finds a crumb of red sealing wax on the key: someone pressed the key into wax to have a copy made. Which suspect uses sealing wax every day? If you can say who before you touch the grid, you’ve out-thought the detective.

Step 3: Find the clue words

Circle the twelve words in the grid as you would in any word search. In our books words run across, down and diagonally, never backwards, so the puzzle stays relaxing.

Step 4: Read the leftover letters

When all twelve words are circled, some letters are left over. Read them row by row, left to right and write them in the answer boxes under the grid. The boxes show how many letters each word has, which helps you split them up.

For this case the leftover letters spell:

THE CLERK PRESSED THE KEY INTO WAX

The clerk seals the harbor’s letters with red wax every day; the deckhand and the cook never touch it. Case closed.

Step 5: Check the solution

At the back of the book, every case has its solved grid and a short explanation of the telling clue, so no case ends on a question mark. There’s no random filler in the grids: the grid size is chosen so the leftover letters fit exactly.

Why we like this format

  • It’s a story and a puzzle in one sitting, on a single page.
  • The answer can’t be guessed by peeking at the grid: you have to find the words first.
  • Cases connect. In our book, 120 cases in the seaside town of Harrow’s Cove lead, one brass button at a time, to a final case where a mysterious thief called the Collector is unmasked.

Want to try it? Murder Mystery Word Search has 120 connected cozy cases (no gore), on 6 x 9 inch pages. And if you just like big, easy word searches, our free printable puzzles are a good place to start.