The Missing Recipe
- A case in 10 chapters
- Free to play
- Large print
- Read in order
How the case begins
The Harmony County Fair, late September, the first cold morning of the year. In the judging tent the coffee is on and the pies are arriving, and at the head table Edith Mabry's battered recipe tin stands open with nothing inside it. Four ribbons in forty years came out of that tin. The recipe was promised to the fair's fundraising cookbook, and the judging starts at ten. Edith folds her hands and asks the committee not to make a fuss, which is its own kind of puzzle. Her apprentice Marla is entering a pie of her own for the first time. Her oldest rival keeps a stand thirty feet away. And her oldest friend came back to town last night, after years away, for reasons nobody has asked about yet. Somebody opened that tin before dawn. The morning knows more than it is saying.
Each chapter is a short scene and a puzzle, and every puzzle leaves you one clue. Keep all nine. The finale needs them.
- 1The Empty Tin
- 2The Judging Table
- 3The Cake Stand
- 4The Committee Tent
- 5What the Fiddler Saw
- 6The Premium Board
- 7The First Frost
- 8Marla's Pie
- 9An Old Friend
- 10The Moment of Truthbring your clues
The people of the case
- Edith Mabry. The baker. Forty years at this fair and four blue ribbons, and the calmest person in the tent on the one morning she should not be.
- Marla Quinn. Edith's apprentice, entering her own pie for the first time. Checked the premium board twice before breakfast.
- Gus Tanner. The fiddler. Opens the tent every fair morning, plays what he sees, and says less than he knows.
- Ruth Alvarez. Prize-committee chair, editing the fundraising cookbook. Answers every question except one.
- Walt Pierce. Runs the cake stand. Edith's rival across a fairground for decades, with her first ribbon pinned above his register.
- Dot Kimball. Edith's oldest friend, back after years away. Walked up from the farm lane at sunrise, the long way.
Prefer pen and paper?
The whole case as one large-print booklet: every chapter and its puzzle, a clue ledger to fill in, and the ending sealed on the last page.