This book reminded me of the one-page mysteries I used to do as a kid. These ones are geared for adults (based on the storylines), but reading it brought me back to my childhood in the best way! I read a bunch of them in the hospital waiting room with my husband and it was an entertaining way to pass the time. Definitely a fun add to any waiting scenario (at a restaurant, on a road trip, at the hospital, etc).

While these are geared towards adults, I do think kids could use them to hone their reading and/or listening comprehensive skills as you do need to focus on the story and make logical leaps to find the answer.

Hope everyone enjoys this book as much as I did!

What a fantastic little book, I have not finished all the puzzles yet but so far have loved them all. It different and kept me and my daughter busy having fun. The puzzles are not hard so my 12 year old really enjoyed helping me out. Each puzzle is only about 2 minutes long and at the end the reader is given a question they must answer to figure out the crime. Brilliant fun.

Easy to follow, creative puzzles that the whole family can enjoy. While it is geared towards an adult audience, some of these I think can be used to help challenge a younger audience (age 8 - 10). One of my favorite features is that the solutions to the puzzles are located in a separate section so you cannot accidentally see the solution just by skimming the page.

Another aspect I thoroughly enjoy is that the solution or "answer" is not entirely clean cut. There is room for more or less insight into the crime. What I mean by this is that different people may come to the same general conclusion but via different routes. Furthermore, the two may have a combined insight that further solves the mystery. For example, my significant other is a lawyer and I did some of these puzzles with him. He saw things from a legal aspect and analyzed it that way whereas I am a more creative creature and just reasoned the solution out. We were both correct but, when combined, our answers almost directly matched the solutions.

I think this would be interesting group book or even maybe a book club book where the group can puzzle it all out together. The different viewpoints will make the book even more interesting than by just doing the puzzles on one's own.

I really loved doing these puzzles. I am a true crime fan, so having the ability to pretend to be a detective was so much fun! Quick little who-done-its that can be done anytime, anywhere, and with anybody--highly recommend!

This is a super fun little book, there are 65 puzzles in this book that kick your brain into gear. When you enjoy detectives you will enjoy this brain teasing book and will easily be able to solve the puzzles. You might think 60 seconds to solve a puzzle, I don’t believe it, but you could read the story and solve the puzzle within a minute or two. Very enjoyable little book.

We could say it is an exercise book in mysteries with solutions which might accompany a textbook on the topic. In my opinion the individual cases are too short to outline the mystery and to give enough clues for the reader to be able to guess what is going on. As stories, they are not very enjoyable. Solutions to cases give me an impression of an assignment or an essay you could possibly write based on the short introduction given in each particular case. Definitely cannot be read as a book. However, it has a potential for training imagination, or be exploited as an entertainment for a very short free moment you might have. The illustrations are great, though.

Loved this unusual puzzle book. The crime puzzles are confined one per page which are just the right size to get the mind thinking. It’s great for picking up, doing a lucky dip and pass a few minutes. Suitable for everyone to have a go at.
Thanks to #NetGalley for the chance to review this book, would definitely buy it for myself.
#60SecondBrainTeasersCrimePuzzles #NetGalley

This is a fun and unique activity book for adults of sorts that lets you the reader play detective in a variety of scenarios.

I love anything that’s interactive in a book, though it seems to be a difficult concept to carry out. But in this particular instance the execution matched the concept.

The puzzles vary in degree of difficulty (though none are exceptionally hard to solve) and provide a nice variety of mind bending crime puzzles for the reader to solve.

Though many of the scenarios are familiar, particularly if you read a lot of procedurals or watch a lot of crime dramas, they still require you to think to solve them and cover an interesting assortment of types of crimes.

One final recommendation: More fun if you read it with a friend! While it’s certainly enjoyable to solve these on your own, it’s even more fun when it’s a shared experience.

These puzzles were really fun. I loved turning detective to work out the answers to them. I did find some of them rather hard but liked that there were different levels of difficulty and there is no fun in getting every one right straight away. A really unique puzzle book that I would definitely recommend, especially to those who love reading and watching crime and detective dramas

Loved this!
Great fun to be had and really enjoyed reading through this and doing the puzzles.
My husband also enjoyed them and we found some of them quite hard

These were great little puzzles to test logic and forensic knowledge. They really did take 60 seconds!
I really enjoyed them, some were so obvious when I saw the answer- the trick is to read every detail!

This would be a great book to take on road trips. Have one person read the short setup and everyone can guess the solution.
Some are easy and some take time and skill to figure out.
I loved it!
I’ll be looking for more of these.

This was so fun to do in the car! There are enough puzzles to keep you busy, and I love that they are all logically explained after you solve it.

The good thing about books like this is the title tells you what to expect. This is full of quick crime "puzzles" that don't take long to solve.

Some of these are really clever and made me really think while others were kind of dumb. Some of the answers relied on speculation that the reader was supposed to make about part of the puzzle. So these run the gamut from interesting and fun to severely lacking.

This kind of book would be great for someone who is a huge fan of police procedural TV shows like NCIS or Law and Order. If you just want puzzles then maybe look elsewhere, but if the crime theme calls to you, then check this out.

Beautiful layout and formatting. The puzzles are clear and well-written, albeit much shorter than I’d expected. Some of them are just a few hundred words.

My 3-star rating is twofold: first, the information in each puzzle is important, but the reader doesn’t need to dissect the information to find the solution. In many instances, the reader just uses “common sense” instead of actual clues in the puzzle. Second, the puzzles simply weren’t that challenging. I was expecting tougher brain teasers.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this fun book!

Do you have what it takes to be a spy? This includes 65 short crime puzzles that will take you less than 60 seconds to test your observation, reason, logic, and basic forensic knowledge. Thoroughly enjoyable and brain-teasing. This is like an adult version of Slylock Fox, but more with a forensic theme to it. I have quite a background in medical science so I was able to guess most correctly but I liked that the answers at the end of the book offered more insights into the crime of the puzzle.

I also loved the whole graphics and illustrations, and setting of the book, very creative and appealing to the eye. This makes for a perfect lunch break past time. As an ebook, it was a task to go back and forth between the puzzles and answers, but I think it should work very well with a physical book. Recommended for young sleuths!

Thanks to Netgalley and publishers for the eARC

Do you read lots of mysteries?  Do you think that you could be a good detective?  Do you enjoy puzzle books? If your answers are yes, you will surely enjoy this title.


The author presents 65 short cases that the reader is invited to solve.  Test your wits and wile away some time most pleasantly as you go through the cases. Some I could solve but others not.  I really enjoyed this book.


Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher.  All opinions are my own.

If you have ever thought you could be a great detectives you will love this book!

You are given a short crime puzzle and then have to deduce the best way to solve the puzzle using the information you just read. The puzzles vary in difficulty and really put your detective skills to the test!

This book was a lot of fun - I used it on my own and with my husband, but you could easily use this in a group. This would be a great way to pass time in a number of situations, or as a quirky ice breaker.

I enjoy reading crime novels so the premise of this book really appealed to me. Short forensic mysteries, normally around 2 pages to challenge the reader to answer the question at the end of the mystery. 65 puzzles to solve with the answers at the back of the book. Unfortunately I found the puzzles either too obvious or a total guess and would have preferred more of a riddle to try and work the answer out. Great idea and sure that in the right setting could have a lot of fun but didn't quite achieve what I was looking for.

Reading the book on a kindle I also struggled to go back and forth to the answer page but maybe that was just my lack of technique. In general I found the book a little tiresome to read and quickly got fed up due to the cases not being challenging enough.

I would like to thank both Netgalley and Quarto Publishing Group – Fair Winds for supplying a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book of teasers presents dozens of crime scenes. The instructions say that no pencil or paper is necessary. Readers are to read each teaser, and deduce the single question at the end. The solutions go from simple to impossible. My correct answers were about 50/50.

However, some were impossible to guess. What is more is that when you look at the answer key, some of the answers suggest quite a bit of speculation that would be needed to come up with the solution. Even some of the most obvious solutions tended to offer unusual details that could not be gleaned from the teaser. Actually, some of the responses provided extra clues.

Overall, this is a very fun book. I can imagine it being used in a number of settings. It could be used singly, with the user solving a handful at a time in order to spend a few relaxing moments used to tax the brain. They could be used in today's difficult environment via video or audio chat with friends or family. Students could be given these by their teachers to work on critical thinking skills.

I love things like this and hope to see more quizzes in this format in the future.

Many thanks to Quarto Publishing Corp. - Fair Winds and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.