Armchair PuzzlesCalm, large-print word searches
The Overdue Book
The Overdue Book

The Engraver's Truth

Print

Chapter 9 of 10

The book comes home on Saturday, simply there at eight, behind glass, real, as if it stepped out and back. Beck demands fingerprints and gets Miss Aldous laying the first edition open for the board: title page, colophon, and inside the front board the bookplate every Fensham gift carries. An engraving of the mill, wheel, yard and long kiln shed, fine as a banknote. Ruth has passed that plate a hundred times and seen scenery. Now she sees what the engraver was told to include: the kiln chimney and, rising in hair-width lines, smoke. The mill's proudest portrait, in ten thousand books, quietly burning forever. Some men buy forgetting. Fensham paid an engraver to remember, then hid the why inside the covers where the picture stood guard. The endpapers, when she checks, lie flat now. New paste. Empty pocket.

Y
E
N
M
I
H
C
H
R
U
R
T
I
A
R
T
R
O
P
S
N
O
H
P
O
L
O
C
S
C
E
N
G
R
A
V
I
N
G
E
E
K
O
M
S
H
I
M
E
N
T
N
R
E
R
E
W
H
L
E
S
A
T
U
R
D
A
Y
E
R
U
B
R
W
H
E
E
L
S
Y
N
T
A
R
E
C
S
E
T
W
A
O
I
E
E
H
H
D
E
P

Use the arrow keys to move between letters. Press Enter or Space on the first letter of a word, then again on the last letter. Press Escape to cancel.

armchairpuzzles.com · free large-print word searches

About this case

A chapter of The Overdue Book, a mystery told in word searches. Each chapter leaves you one clue; the finale needs them all.

How a mystery chapter works

  1. 1
    Read the scene first.Every chapter opens with a scene from the case. The word list is drawn from it, and so is the clue.
  2. 2
    Find the words.Tap a word's first letter, then tap along to its last, or press and drag. Found words colour themselves in and cross off the list.
  3. 3
    One listed word is not in the grid.Find the other nine and the word left over is the chapter's clue. Note it down, or let the case page keep it for you.
  4. 4
    The finale needs every clue.The last puzzle's word list is the clues you collected, and once you find them all, the leftover letters spell out who did it, and why.

Prefer pen and paper?

Print The Overdue Book as one large-print booklet: every chapter and its puzzle, a clue ledger, and the ending sealed on the last page.

Print the case bookletPrinting tips →

All chapters of The Overdue Book

More to explore:All Mystery Cases word searchesPrintable Mystery Cases word searches

↑ Back to the puzzle