Explained first
The first time a new kind of puzzle turns up, a box on the page tells you how it works. Nothing is ever used before it has been explained.
A museum mystery · Ages 8–12
The Locked Gallery
The curator has left you his keys. For one night the museum is yours: ten galleries and one hundred locked cases, and every one of them opens by thinking, never by guessing.
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How this book works
Four promises the book makes to its reader on page 3.
No guessing
Every puzzle can be finished by thinking. You never have to guess: if you are stuck, there is something on the page you have not used yet.
Harder as the night goes on
The rooms get harder as you go, and the last case in every room needs two kinds of puzzle at once.
Answers to check with
The answers are at the back, and the number and logic grids come with a hint on where to start. Use them to check, not to finish.
One night, ten rooms
The book runs from nine in the evening to six in the morning, one gallery an hour. Scroll sideways to walk through.
Nine o'clockGallery 1
The Entrance Hall
The great front doors are about to lock for the night; take your first step gently before the echoes wake.
Ten o'clockGallery 2
The Portrait Gallery
The pictures here are kept in their frames by numbers, and the numbers are all you get.
Eleven o'clockGallery 3
The Counting House
Nothing was ever bought or sold in this room. It was only ever counted.
MidnightGallery 4
The Cartography Room
Every map in here is of somewhere that has changed since it was drawn.
One in the morningGallery 5
The Clockwork Wing
The clocks in this wing all still run. None of them agrees with another.
Two in the morningGallery 6
The Mosaic Gallery
No two squares of this floor were cut by the same hand, and the joins still show.
Three in the morningGallery 7
The Reading Room
This is the only room where the writing matters more than the thing it is written on.
Four in the morningGallery 8
The Chessboard Room
The board is set into the floor, and no one has ever agreed on which side moves first.
Five in the morningGallery 9
The Vault
The vault door has been opened only a handful of times, and every time somebody wrote it down.
Six in the morningGallery 10
The Curator's Office
He worked here for forty years and left the room exactly as you find it.
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
What is inside
One hundred puzzles in ten kinds, on pages big enough for a pencil and an eraser.
- Logic grids
- Sudoku
- Nonograms
- Calcudoku
- Futoshiki
- Suguru
- Mazes
- Word searches
- Spot the difference
- Secret codes
And a notebook: the last case of each room gives one key letter. Ten letters, in order, say where the second door opens.
Two editions, the same hundred puzzles
Both are paperbacks, 8.5 × 11 inches, 166 pages.
Black and white
Big grids to write in.
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Color Edition
The same puzzles with a painted parchment look and the museum pictures in color. The grids stay black, to write in.
On Amazon
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And one more thing
There is a cat. He was here before the curator and he will be here after you. He is in every room, he is never part of the puzzle, and he is never the answer.
From the copyright page
Every puzzle in this book has exactly one answer, and every answer can be reached by reasoning, without guessing. Each one was checked twice, by two different solving programs.
Created with human direction and editorial review, with the help of artificial-intelligence tools for the text, the drawings and the puzzles.
The Locked Gallery is published in English.
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