50,000 Suspects · 18 Clues · One Killer.
Cross them out one by one until only
the killer remains.
50,000 Suspects · 18 Clues · One Killer.
A murder mystery in the shape of a logic puzzle. Fifty thousand suspects, eighteen true clues from an anonymous witness, and one cleared name. The killer is hiding among the rest. It is your job to find them.
A man named Marchand was killed on the eighth of December. An anonymous witness wrote to the precinct that night. The witness named one suspect she was certain had not done it — Maren Holst — and left eighteen clues that are each true of the person who did. The clues are precise. The witness was not in the mood to be clever. Apply each clue to every name. Cross out every name that fails. The killer survives all eighteen.
D.I. Mara Crane received three documents that night. She passed them to you.
A man named Marchand. Stabbed. Hotel hallway. December 8.
From a witness who saw the killing. Anonymous. Eighteen clues, each true.
Fifty thousand first names. Every guest, every passer-by, every name on the registry.
The witness's clues are precise — each is a strict filter on the 50,000 names. A taste:
Eighteen of these, each one independent, each one true. The killer is the only name in 50,000 that survives all of them.
The book is available exclusively on Amazon, in paperback.
Found the killer? Enter the first name and the page number below. The site will tell you whether you are correct. It will tell you nothing else.
No hints. No "close enough."
The witness asked us to thank you. She is safe. She is sleeping.
Maren Holst is at home in Aarhus. She has framed the witness's letter; it now hangs in her kitchen above the kettle.
D.I. Mara Crane is at her desk, with the next case open.
Volume 2 of The Eighteen Clues is on its way.
To be notified when it drops, follow Nell Westbrook on Amazon.
Please consider leaving a review on Amazon.
Self-published puzzle books live or die by their first ten reviews.
Don't give up. Every clue is true. The witness was not in the mood to be clever.
Try again whenever you're ready.
No. The solution is here on this site only. You enter the first name and page number above, and you'll be told whether you are correct. No hints. No partial credit.
There is a "Mirror Reveal" page near the back of the book for readers who give up entirely — but it's printed in mirror script and requires a hand mirror to read. The full verification happens here.
Four to eight hours, spread over multiple sittings. The clues can be applied in any order. Some readers finish in an evening; most take a week of half-hour sessions before bed.
No. For all clues about vowels, the vowels are A, E, I, O, U only. Y does not count.
No. Every single name in the 50,000-name list is a standard single-word name in plain English letters. No hyphens, no accents, no apostrophes, no spaces. If you see "Carol-anne" or "Aoife" in your mind, you've added something that isn't there.
Then you've made an error. The puzzle is mathematically designed so that exactly one name passes all eighteen clues. If two or more survive, go back and re-check — most often a hidden-word clue (animals, months, colors) was overlooked.
The clues are independent. If one feels stuck, try another. The order in the book is one suggested path, but the puzzle works in any order.
The hidden-word clues (animals, months, colors) are the most commonly overlooked — names like "Catherine" hide CAT, "Margaret" hides MAR, "Frederick" hides RED. Slow down and read each name letter by letter.
Yes. Volume 2 of The Eighteen Clues is in progress. To be notified when it launches, follow Nell Westbrook on Amazon — they'll email you automatically when the next book drops.