Mystery Cases word searches

  • 9 cases · 90 chapters
  • Free to play
  • Large print
  • A new case on Mondays
A mystery case

The Last Page of the Night

Winter, 1948. Twenty minutes before the serial's finale airs, the last page of the script is gone.

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A mystery case

The Missing Recipe

The morning of the fair's baking judgment, the champion recipe is gone from its tin.

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A mystery case

The Last Waltz at the Starlight

New Year's Eve, 1954. The last waltz ends at midnight. The bandleader never sees the new year.

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A mystery case

Bitter Almonds

Closing weekend, 1953. The Lakeview's owner is poisoned at his desk, and the office was locked from the inside.

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A mystery case

The Overnight Berth

The overnight express, 1937. The famous novelist is gone from her locked berth, and the train never stopped. Almost.

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A mystery case

The Marquee Letters

The Bijou turns twenty-five on Saturday. On Thursday, every brass letter of its name is gone from the marquee.

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A mystery case

The Man off the Bus

1946. A stranger steps off the bus asking for the widow Bly, and the town tries him by rumor inside a week.

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A mystery case

The Prize Rose

The garden show, 1935. Rose entrants are withdrawing one by one, and each has found the same crooked envelope in their basket.

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A mystery case

The End of the Pier

Closing night, 1957. The pier's owner is found in the water beneath the boarded-off end, and the safety rope was cut clean.

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Prefer to print? Printable Mystery Cases word searches

A little background

About Mystery Cases

A Mystery Case is a word search with a story to solve. Each case reads like a short book: every chapter opens on a scene, and the puzzle that follows leaves you holding one clue. Someone in these pages is hiding something. Nine chapters of quiet evidence point at who.

The trick is in the word list. One listed word is never in the grid, and finding the other nine tells you which one it was. That word is your clue, and the case page keeps every clue you earn. The finale turns your clues into its own word list, and when the last one is found, the letters left over spell out who did it, and why. Same calm, large print as the rest of the site, and a case keeps your place between evenings.

Common questions

What is a Mystery Case?

A story told in word searches: a case in about ten chapters, each a short scene plus a puzzle that leaves you one clue, building to a finale that needs every clue you have gathered.

Do I have to read the chapters in order?

They are best in order, like any book, and the case page always points at your next chapter. Nothing is locked, though. This is a bookshelf, not a gate.

How are my clues kept between visits?

The case page remembers the chapters you have finished on this device and shows the clues they earned, so a case works fine across as many evenings as you like. No account needed.

How hard are the puzzles?

The grids are the same large-print 10 by 10 as everywhere on the site, at the classic setting: words hide in every direction, diagonals and backwards included. The real challenge is the case itself, and the rules are printed right above every grid.

Are the stories violent?

They are classic mysteries in the Sunday-evening tradition: real stakes and real feeling, nothing graphic on the page.