Montague Island Mysteries and Other Logic Puzzles

I am not a genius, but I have also done a lot of logic puzzles. Often times, these sort of books (for example, stuff from Brain Games) are annoyingly easy, or you get stumped by unclear wording rather than challenging logic. Montague Island has 3 good things going for it that put it above many comparable puzzle books. 1. There is a plot. Loosely. Usually, at best, you get thematic books that reskin puzzles to be "Cold Case" themed or "Sherlock Holmes" themed. There is a consistent cast in Montague Island, and going through the puzzles linearly feel more rewarding, like you are progressing a plot rather than tackling an isolated puzzle. 2. The puzzles are more challenging. They are not insanely hard, but they do force you to use logic more than most of these books do. I don't recommend it for a first time logic puzzler, but if you are relatively familiar and comfortable with basic puzzles, you'll like this. 3. All puzzles have DETAILED solutions at the back of the book. Rather than simply showing you the solution (ex: Ms Peacock used Rope in the Kitchen), the solution walks through how you would arrive to the solution through the clues given (ex: Clue 2 states that Ms Peacock used either the Candlestick or Rope. However, we can eliminate the Candlestick when we look at Clue 4 with Clue 1. Therefore, Ms Peacock must have used the Rope). These kind of solutions really help you learn *why* you were stumped, and make you better at logic puzzles. As soon as I finish this book, I plan to buy the rest of the 4 books in this series. I highly recommend this for puzzlers who are looking for a fun challenge.

Loved it! I love logic puzzles and it's harder than the puzzle books I normally get. I liked that there was a running mystery through the whole book too. I considered buying it for my 14 year old who is just starting to show interest, but glad I didn't. This is not for beginners. I got her a puzzle book with different levels from easy to difficult. This one is mostly difficult puzzles. But definitely make sure you study the way things are worded. It makes a big difference in the ability to solve the puzzle. Edited to add: those reviews saying there are errors are wrong. They're just not doing it right. ALL of them are solvable. You just have to think outside the box. For the reviewer that said puzzle 2.3 had clues that don't fit--all the clues fit if you're reading it correctly. And the reviewer that said there was an error with the last puzzle and the clue should've been worded differently--it is completely correct. And the reviewer that said there were errors in puzzle 12.1 and that it should say that Jessica and Karen had 3 not 2 puzzles that they both "attempted but failed to solve" is also wrong. There are 3 puzzles they didn't solve, but one them wasn't attempted by one of them because they made the puzzle and no one who made a puzzle tried to solve their own. Bottom line: there are no errors but it IS very difficult.

Received the book a couple days ago and have not been able to put it down! Yet because each puzzle is quite tricky, I'm only about 25% through them all, so this book will definitely provide you with hours and hours of puzzle solving. ADVERTISED CONCEPT: I was drawn to the idea of a Mystery/Sleuth element tied into a puzzle book. So far, the execution of that concept has been the only bit of disappointment with the book, because there really isn't much of a story and the puzzles don't help you make progress on any case YET (maybe when I get closer to the end, it will reference things from previous puzzles - I will update my review if that is the case). PUZZLES: IMO, these are complicated puzzles but not impossible puzzles. If you are new to the idea of logic puzzles, I would recommend you start with something easier. Instead of providing a reliable or positively proven fact, most of the "grid" style puzzles in the book rely on negative statements (He did not do this), either/or statements (either this or that is true, but not both), and conditional statements (if P, then Q) to deduce the solution. The annoying thing about conditional statements is that the statement itself is still true when the antecedent is false and the consequent is either true or false (a quick refresher on truth tables may help you before you begin! LOL). The problems that I found to be the trickiest were ones that heavily used conditional statements AND made you doubt whether the conditional statement was true or false (For example, you are told that among the group of 7 statements, 6 are definitely true but the statement from the guilty party may or may not be true, and you are not told which of the 7 are guilty or innocent). Often, you have to follow things down a couple different possible paths (Path 1: If A then B, If B then C, but I know C contradicts a truthful statement, so Path 1 must be wrong, therefore Path 2 is correct). Sometimes it feels like you are doing a lot of work just to rule out one of several possibilities as opposed to doing work to prove one thing correct. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just a less enjoyable/fulfilling style of problem solving for me personally. However, these criticisms are minor. I have not encountered any typos in the book so far, and I appreciate that there is some variety in style. CONSTRUCTION: I appreciate the spiral binding which makes it easy to fold the book in half to concentrate on just the right or left side. The print and diagrams are all very readable. Some scratch paper at the back of the book or a blank page accompanying some of the more involved problems that involve calculations (Ex: Puzzle 3.3) would have been icing on the cake, but again that's a personal preference. OVERALL: If you are looking for something simple to do to relax, I would probably advise you avoid this book. However, if you like challenging puzzles that require a lot of thought, I recommend you give this a try.

I love this book because while they’re all logic puzzles, they go beyond the standard grid format. This has been a real challenge and has gotten me out of my comfort zone. I’ll be buying them all, especially because I haven’t found anything else like these. Other books are either all grid, or a mix of things like crossword puzzles and sudoku.

This book is not just grid style logic puzzles, though that is what I bought the book for. I am really enjoying the alternative logic puzzles as well. They break up the pacing and provide variety. The storyline that weaves throughout all of the puzzles makes it particularly entertaining and makes it so that you don't have to memorize a new set of names for every puzzle. I will definitely be buying the next book when I finish this one.

This was an interesting book. I enjoy puzzles. This book is nice because it has a story that connects throughout the book with various puzzles along the way. I must say that they are very hard. For me, it was not a nice casual reading and puzzle book. If you are good with puzzles, this is a good purchase.

This is a fun logic puzzle book. Some if them are pretty difficult but there is a wide variety of puzzles in this book.

This is definitely not for the casual puzzle solver. If you want an easy level crossword or sudoku move along. Every puzzle in this book requires using clues and logic, sometimes a bit of math, with most using a traditional logic grid or variant of it in order to eliminate options and narrow down on the answer. Some reviews mention that it is too hard or there isn't enough information to solve the puzzles. I am halfway through this book and I can 100% confidently say that is not true. Every single puzzle has enough information to correctly solve it if you think on it enough. There are also thorough solutions in the back to work you through the logic, so even if you start off slowly you can learn how to solve these types of puzzles. There are a few easy ones but most have taken me 30-90 minutes to solve, with a couple devilish ones taking me a couple hours (Brunch. IYKYK.) I've even had to completely start over on a couple. Love the challenge. Definitely going to order the other three.

Editing this because eventually I found myself enjoying this book a lot. Getting one thing out of the way.. I found the cover art intriguing but the setting and story is incredibly boring and not well written. That's not a big issue for me since I mainly want to do puzzles but I will also not ignore the story in a story puzzle book. First of all: I love a ton of the puzzles, especially the grid puzzles are fun. But the quality of puzzles varies sometimes in my opinion. English isn't my first language but I rarely find myself struggling with the english books I read or the english puzzles I solve. This one made me question my language skills from time to time. Not because of some complex prose but because I found some writing kind of confusing. The puzzles are more challenging, yes. But I find myself wondering if my english is THAT bad or if some of the puzzles hints are just worded very poorly. Sometimes there was information disclosed in the solution that I could not for the life of me get out of the statements in the puzzle itself, even when going over the solution and the puzzle several times. The wording in those instances is too vague and/or leaves room for different interpretations that make the intended interpretation not as clear as the solution suggests. That made solving some of the puzzles frustrating to me. I like a good challenge and I appreciate tricky puzzles that make me go "ooh I didn't see that!" when I take a look at the solution. This one just made me go "why would on earth would you word it in this way then?" a few times too often for my tastes. I did a actually end up buying the other books of the series and they all repeated this experience for me so far. Amazing puzzles, except when they are not.

I love logic puzzles, but I find a lot of logic puzzle books too easy. This book is great, as it provides just the right amount of challenge- the puzzles are tough enough that they require some real concentration and thought, but they're not frustratingly hard, either. I also really like that they're strung together with a bit of a narrative- that made them more enjoyable, and I found myself quite hooked in. I also like that the book is spiral bound so it lies flat, and the paper is nice quality too. All in all, a great book. I'd definitely recommend it if you're experienced with logic puzzles; if you're a beginner, I'd suggest going with another option.

Challenging puzzles to complete , fun and thought provoking.

I really liked the cover art haha. As for the story and puzzle I am only starting it and enjoying so far.

Challenging logic puzzles that definitely get the grey cells working, and nice to have a story line to follow throughout the book as well. These are advanced logic puzzles so if you are not used to them, and also the grid type, I would suggest doing an easier logic puzzle book first.