The story We Don’t Do Murder is a murder mystery, but it’s very puzzle-heavy. There are puzzles and riddles on every page and the whole book constitutes a logic puzzle which can be used to identify the murderer.
To find out if you are the sort of person who will enjoy what follows, please consider the following.
Logic puzzle
You walk into a room.
In front of you is a long table with placecards in a row, showing the numbers 1 to 7 from left to right.
Also on the table are two piles of cards: one has seven red cards and one has seven blue. (I’m sorry I can’t give you the cards. You can make up your own with paper if it helps.)
Each card has white letter on it. Some cards have two letters. The letters don’t appear to spell anything.
Turn the cards over.
Red Cards: On the back of each red card there is a cartoon drawing of a person, with a title.
Here is a list of the people on the red cards, and the letter or letters on the other side of their card.
(The drawings don’t really matter for this puzzle. Later, if you are interested, they will help you to match these people with the people in We Don’t Do Murder. But for now you can ignore them.)
| Title | Letter(s) on back | Drawing |
| The Widow | E | a dumpy woman with a blunt bob haircut |
| The Watcher | A | a woman sitting holding a pen and sketch pad |
| The Commander | HA | a woman with long blonde hair in a suit and heels |
| The Spectre | W | a wild-looking man in a forest |
| The Officer | HA | a muscular man rowing a long boat |
| The Stranger | L | a lanky man balancing on one leg |
| The Reader | UL | a man with wavy white hair swept back |
Blue Cards: On the back of each blue card there is a phrase.
Here are the blue cards with their letters and the phrase on the back.
| Phrase on back | Letter(s) on front |
| Has a secret friend | S |
| Has a secret fear | SO |
| Has a secret shame | V |
| Has a secret place | S |
| Has a secret at home | L |
| Has secret yearning | DO |
| Knows a hundred deadly secrets | S |
The Task
It is your job to place each person-card under a number and place their secret-card beneath them.
Use the clues below. You may have to leave some clues aside and look at them a second time.
When the cards are arranged, turn them over and read top to bottom, left to right and you will find my epigram.
Then, if you wish, you can continue reading, here.
CLUES
The Officer and the person with the secret yearning have different numbers. They are both even and are higher than the number of The Stranger, which is also even.
The Commander’s number is one higher than the person with the secret friend.
The Reader’s number is one lower than The Officer.
The person with a secret at home belongs to the left of (has a lower number than) The Stranger.
The Reader has a retreat called The Pallisades, which no one knows about.
There are more than two numbers between the numbers of The Watcher and The Spectre.
The Widow sits immediately to the right of the person with the secret shame.
The person with the secret friend sits immediately to the right of The Officer and is not at number 7.
The Spectre knows a hundred deadly secrets.
…..
Chapter 1 begins here.
The Absent Answer 