Book Review: Five-Minute Mysteries 5

Reviewed By: Catherine Thompson - RAM

Five-Minute Mysteries 5     Amazon US TPB Amazon Canada TPB
Ken Weber
Class/Genre:   Mystery   [Short Stories]
Series: Five-Minute Mysteries
Firefly, $14.95 trade paperback, 189 pages
ISBN: 1-55297-868-0

Have you got a mystery reader on your Christmas shopping list who seems to have read everything in the bookstore? Or are you yourself one of those people who enjoys a literary brainteaser? Then this book is for you!

Five-Minute Mysteries 5 is the newest in Ken Weber’s series of short brain-tickling logic puzzles. This one contains 40 new mysteries, each one a tantalizing little problem. An art thief steals a priceless Picasso. What small mistake does she make that may draw attention to herself? A gang of thieves enters a bank after hours, seeming to know every detail of the night staff’s habits. What inadvertent alarm do they sound? An apparent suicide is found on the sidewalk on a snowy morning. What makes the crime-scene investigator suspect foul play?

Each short story (and none takes longer than a few minutes to read) has a rating, depending upon its difficulty: 1, 2, or 3 handguns, with 1 being the easiest and 3 the most difficult. I stumbled on a few of the easy ones, I will admit, and I surprised myself by getting the answers to quite a few of the difficult ones.

As Weber says in his introduction, “Nothing gives mystery buffs more satisfaction than getting ahead in a story and beating the writer to the punch. … Yet—and this is what sets mystery lovers apart—nothing thrills them more than when the mystery defeats them, when they turn the last page and find a surprise waiting, something they’d missed.” So surprise the mystery buff on your Christmas list this year with a copy of Five-Minute Mysteries 5 tucked in his stocking.

Catherine Thompson - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Catherine Thompson - RAM