Lets you join the world's greatest fictional detective and use your own powers of deduction to solve these ingenious enigmas. This collection features all kinds of puzzles to suit all tastes and levels of logical skill - from 'elementary' to 'impenetrable'.
Tim Dedopulos, a British writer, editor, publisher and game designer with nearly 100 works to his name in areas ranging from horror and sff, through music and art, to games, puzzles and jokes.
Tim lives in Spain with his wife and the ghost of his murdered bromeliad, grimly acclimatising to his new-found and unwelcome mid-40s. A shameless INFJ, he usually tries to avoid thinking in the third person.
First two chapters were more enjoyable to me. Later/harder puzzles tend to get more solely mathematical problems or "black stories" - like improbable case studies. Still enjoyable. Also you should be familiar with british units of measure.
When I found this book, I was so excited. I have been on a Sherlock kick recently having discovered the Benedict Cumberbatch series on PBS. So when I found this puzzle book, I thought I would get to be like the famous detective and solve some crimes.
The book is setup just like the original novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with Dr. John Watson as the narrator. This time, the prose is in the form of Watson's notebook containing some of Holmes lesser known ( and so extent, less exciting mysteries- unpublished of course!) With the answers in the back, I thought that this would be like Donald J Sobol's Encyclopedia Brown series that I adored as a kid. (who am I kidding, I still do!) Yet I would have to venture that about 75% of this book reads like the SATs!
With complicated word plays, lengthy math problems, logic puzzles, and blasted fractions, this book was hard. It didn't help that these puzzles get more and more difficult as the book progresses. Plus, some of the more tricky puzzles unfairly require the reader to have a general knowledge of life in Victorian England in order to solve them.
By the end of the book, these contests were so difficult to even comprehend that I was pretty much rushing through them. I was that flustered with this book. I think you've got to be a member of MENSA to enjoy the second half of this book. And if you aren't, you’re going to need a pen, paper and possibly a calculator and dictionary to solve them.
I enjoyed the artwork, some of which were original pieces by Sydney Paget, illustrator of Doyle's stories when first published in London's The Strand magazine. This is a lovely little book for serious Sherlock enthusiasts but for a comparative novice of Holmes and Watson like me, it's going straight to a used bookstore for trade credit.
Un libro muy entretenido, sitiendote casi o algo menos intentarlo como Sherlock Holmes jajaja. Algunos de los acertijos son muy dificiles y algunas de las respuestas que pensamos podrían ser ciertas pero al haber solo una solución al final nunca sabrás si lo deduciste bien, por otra parte si quieres adivinar si o si lo que paso pero no quieres ver la respuesta necesitas de otra persona que lo mire por ti -aunque esto mismo resulta divertido turnandose entre quien resolverá y quien mira la respuesta.- Otros acertijos son con lugares relacionados con Londres con lo cual una persona que al menos no haya estado alli no sabra resolverlo. En definitiva muy entretenido aunque algunos de los acertijos sean muy relativos otros te enseñan cosas que no sabías.
Cietamente dirigido al lector local, varios de los enigmas son de difícil solución si no se es británico. Mala traducción al español, con errores que comprometen la solución a varios de los enigmas.
Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of How I Wound Up Reading this Puzzle Collection.
It was a dark and stormy night when I presented this book to the son of a friend nine years ago. The young man was merely 5/8 of the age he will have attained by his birthday next year. It seemed to be a sensible gift at the time as he had just entered his Sherlock Holmes kick and had even permanently borrowed my ancient copy of The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. So when I found this puzzle book, I thought he would enjoy stepping into the shoes of the famous detective to solve some crimes.
Recently the young man has finished university and gone out into the world to seek his fortune. His mother has thus taken action to change his bedroom into an office/guest room. One of the items thrown in the refuse pile was this volume. It remained in pristine condition so I rescued it. Why had he not enjoyed this book?
Physically, the book is a piece of art. The cover and inner pages are arresting. Some of the artwork consists of original pieces by Sydney Paget, illustrator of Doyle's stories when first published in London's The Strand magazine.
Each puzzle is introduced much like the original novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with Dr. John Watson as the narrator. The prose is in the form of Watson's notebook containing some of Holmes lesser known observations and logic training regimens with the answers in the back. Another reviewer remarks that about 75% of this book reads like the SATs and I must agree. So a major clue to the mystery of the unread book has been uncovered.
However the first several problems enticed me. In fact I learned a lesson from the very first puzzle - that it is vital to set aside your preconceptions if you are to think freely. My defeat on this page was such a vivid illustration of this axiom I decided I had much to learn from Mr. Holmes. So I put the book in my car to use as a mental gym whenever a I had a few odd moments. The result: I attacked at least one puzzle a day.
This book is not easy. Most of the problems I could not solve at all. Some I could not even comprehend. I did best with the straight up crime mysteries and oddities of human behavior, but with complicated word plays, lengthy math problems, logic puzzles, and those hideous genealogy questions from Mr. Hudson, this book was hard. It didn't help that some puzzles require the reader to have a general knowledge of the geography of 19th Century London to solve them.
The puzzles got progressively harder so that towards the end of the book they became too difficult for me to even fathom, and I skipped right over them. Many a time I was content to just formulate a good plan of attack towards solving the problem. I was that flustered with this book.
No wonder that my teenage friend left the book to rot on the shelf. Still I'm glad that I had a chance to train under the great Sherlock Holmes and contend against the challenges he set forth.
Klappentext: Begleiten sie den weltberühmten Privatdetektiv Sherlock Holmes auf Spurensuche und nutzen Sie ihr Kombinationsgeschick zum Lösen kniffliger Fälle. Geschrieben von Holmes' Sidekick Dr. John Watson stellen Rätsel in vier Schwierigkeitskategorien sowohl Hobby- als auch Profi-Detektive auf die Probe.
Autor (Quelle: englische Wikipedia): Tim Dedopulos, geboren Ende der 60er in Winchester, studierte in London Anthropologie. Er ist Spiele-Designer und Autor. Seine Werke bewegen sich in einer Vielzahl von Genres.
Persönlicher Eindruck: Wer aufgrund des Klappentextes eine Sammlung von Ratekrimis erwartet, wird schnell enttäuscht. Die literarischen Figuren Holmes und Watson dienen lediglich der Rahmenhandlung, in der Holmes seinem Freund Rätsel stellt, um seinen detektivischen Scharfsinn zu fördern. Von der Aufmachung ist das immerhin durchaus hübsch, teils auch schön selbstironisch. Dazu passt die optische Aufmachung des Buches mit gerahmten Seiten und Bleistiftzeichnungen als Illustrationen. Unter den Rätseln nehmen mathematische und physikalische Aufgaben den weitaus größten Teil ein, verflochtene Verwandtschaftsfragen, Bilderrätsel und Fragen zu Kriminalfällen sind in der Minderheit. Die Lösungen finden sich am Ende des Buchs. Leider sind die Rätsel nicht frei von Fehlern, teils fehlen Informationen, ohne die man nicht zur Lösung kommen kann, oder die Zahlen, die in der Lösung verwendet werden, stimmen nicht mit den im Rätsel vorgegbenen überein.
Fazit: Für Freunde mathematischer Rätsel in ansprechender Verpackung fast perfekt, aber nicht das, was man aufgrund von Aufmachung und Klappentext erwarten muss.
Definitivamente, este tipo de libro no es para mí. Lo empecé con muchas expectativas (primer error), ya que al ser diferente a los demás, me pareció súper original, y había visto reseñas que hablaban maravillas de él (segundo error, no todo lo que le gusta a los demás le gusta a todo el mundo).
Algo que me ha gustado, han sido las ilustraciones: hacen que el libro sea muy especial y que visualmente anime a su lectura. Y ahora viene el por qué no me ha gustado: el libro se divide en enigmas de diferente dificultad, donde te plantea una serie de casos, y tienes que encontrar la respuesta correcta. El problema viene, cuando hay alguno que otro que son muy absurdos y, para saber si estás en lo cierto (si es que se te ha ocurrido algo), tienes que irte al final del libro a buscar la respuesta, algo que personalmente, me pone nerviosa.
Y me diréis, ¿por qué no lees todos los enigmas seguidos, y después te lees las respuestas?. Llegó un momento en el que también intenté hacerlo así, pero lo que ocurre es que cuando llegas a la parte de las respuestas, ya no te acuerdas bien del enigma...y vuelta a empezar, vete al enigma, léelo y entiende la respuesta. Como no me gusta dejar un libro a medias, lo he conseguido acabar con mucho trabajo, pero no repetiré con ninguno que sea parecido.
I liked the mystery puzzles (crimes etc.) If it had just been those or organized in a way to put similar types of puzzles/riddles together I would rate this higher. While sometimes I like math or word puzzles that's not what I wanted when reading Sherlock Holmes puzzles. I wish they had grouped similar type puzzles together so you could go to the type you are interested in.
Too many of the puzzles have unclear information. Many give you ages of people in whole numbers and expect an answer in fractional numbers. At least one puzzle has information in the answer that contradicts the set up.
Me ha ayudado a encontrar algunos casos para clase de cara a trabajar el pensamiento lateral, pero más allá de eso es un mal entretenimiento demasiado poco basado en la deducción.
This would have been so much better without the number of typos and the one problem that was completely wrong. But if you’re looking for math challenges, you can’t do much better.
A beast of a book to get through. Had to rest my brain frequently. Worth the read to challenge yourself and learn to think more critically and creatively. However, there were many puzzles that were ridiculous and borderline impossible to solve based on the information given. I managed to solve about half the puzzles and it felt pretty great to get the answer right. I also managed to find quite a few mistakes and typos in the book, so that makes me feel better. Clearly, this wasn't written by our dear Sherlock (nor John Watson as the cover suggests). We're all human and we make mistakes--the legendary Sherlock Holmes will always be in an entirely different league.
This was a fun book! It is a collection of brainteasers and mental puzzles that are written as if this was Dr. Watson's personal journal. The answers to some of the puzzles seemed a little bit of a stretch making them near impossible to arrive at a conclusion. However, this was a very fun book that really forced me to think outside the box (or book in this case).
I got this for Christmas. Some brainteasers made me feel clever, and others made me feel quite stupid. :) The Holmes veneer is fairly thin; I wish it were tied a bit more closely to Holmes canon, perhaps by having story-themed riddles, but I suppose we can't have everything.
To be fair, it wasn't a novel or anything, just a collection of riddles and brain teasers. I'm so glad I was able to figure a few out, but most of them were really tough.