Every official mystery we have published, newest first. Each one takes about five minutes, and your first attempt at it earns points toward the Top Sleuths.
It was 8:35 A.M. and Cynthia Peck was not only in a bad mood but late for work as well, which was most unusual for her. Not only was she late, but rain had been coming…
Hercule Poirot drummed his fingers on his desk, trying vainly to control his impatience. He stared at the telephone, willing it to ring. It did not ring. “For heaven’s…
65 million years ago, Grog the caveman fell asleep under the sun. He snored, enjoying a long nap. He dreamed he was chasing a dinosaur, and that the dinosaur was afraid…
Walking outside, Tim soon realized why he felt as he did, and why his friends were acting so strange. His car was missing! A light bulb went off in his head when he…
The last performance of “Murder by Design,” a classic 1930s Broadway thriller that had once been a vehicle for Tallulah Bankhead, was going smoothly. In the last act…
A small high school stood adjacent to a much larger hill, which effectively blocked out the sun so that shadows engulfed the building. The absence of activity on the…
I did my best to play it cool and not go over and talk with all of the kids I knew. Fortunately, many of them stopped over during the night to say a quick hello. Even…
The current show, “Lehar’s Merry Widow”, was a perennial favorite. It made no difference that half the audience knew all of the song lyrics by heart. They could - and…
He was the strangest person I'd ever met. It was already hot, even at 8 a.m., when we pulled into the restaurant in New Mexico. I don't remember where -- we'd been…
Juliet, placing her dollar into the envelope first, did not pay strict attention to the others as the envelope made its way around the table. Though, she did notice Doc…
Each woman knew that playing opposite Hollywood’s most bankable leading man could launch a career, or jump-start a stalled one. Janice Starling, Sandra Buckingham and…
Recently, Patrick learned something about a friend in the group -- one of the old men had been a bank robber in the 1930s. He had spent time in a federal penitentiary…
“You'll like it here,” said Debra. “Everything is a mystery.” Before I could digest the mystique of the mansion in front of me, or the height of its white columns, a…
The accident happened on Opening Night, before a full house. It was in the Third Act, when Mrs. Danvers enters from stage right for a bit of business, as they say in…
Glen pushed back the floppy brim of his Tilley hat and mopped his forehead, promising himself a hot dog and cold soda for lunch with the money he’d found. He was up by…
Janice Cummings was excited. As the youth director for a new church in Overland Park, Kansas, she would host the church’s first youth sleep over. The little church had…
He'd invited me to watch his first widescreen Super Bowl — which was a relief. Eight years earlier, when I was seven years old, my parents had taken me for my first…
The exclusive cocktail party, hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Fairbank, had prematurely ended with the untimely demise of one of the guests, not to mention Mrs. Fairbank’s…
There was a crime, and I was worried. And I was always worried about an acrobat named Lorenzo. He was my father, and he'd exercised every day until his slender body was…
Officer Jerry Davidson of the Las Vegas Police Force entered “Abe’s Novelties.” Surrounding him were all kinds of magical apparatus. He noticed a gray-haired man behind…
I know the value exactly because when he found the miser’s hoard, honest Sam made two telephone calls immediately, the first to Bob Parsons, and the other to my editor…
"Hello?" Joe called out. "Is someone there?" Joe wasn't sure why, but being in the corn maze always made him feel uneasy, even though it was on his family’s farm. Even…
George Wilson slid his access card through the reader and entered the office. He walked past the rows of empty workstations and stopped at the desk of his assistant…
“We need your help to pull a prank on Gary.” “What do you have in mind?” Bethany asked. “I want to steal his car,” Joe said, a mischievous grin spreading out across his…
When Martin Caldwell got to his office on Monday morning, he felt as if he had just left minutes ago. Being a city detective called for long and sometimes boring…
