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The Halmerton Emeralds
A novel told in puzzles. 32+1 floor-plan mysteries with a story running through them; one verified solution, every answer explained.
The book
- A story in thirty-two chapters. Sir Walter reads his will aloud with the emeralds on the table, and by Wednesday the whole house knows what it said. Every chapter ends in a crime; the plan on the facing page tells you who did it; the next chapter tells you what happened after.
- Four acts, four murders. Whoever kills leaves the house. Ten suspects at the reading of the will, six on the last night.
- Clues that reach back. A clue may name a suspect as "the one who took the key in Case 4": the book is a season, not a collection.
- The same promise. Every case checked by a program before printing, one answer only, every solution explained, and what people say in the chapters is never evidence.
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Also coming in Italian as Gli Smeraldi di Halmerton.
About the book
A season at Halmerton House, told in puzzles
Sir Walter Halmerton reads his will aloud with the emeralds on the table, and by Wednesday the whole house knows what it said. Thirty-two chapters follow. Each one ends in a crime, and each crime is a case on the facing page: a floor plan, a set of numbered clues and one arrangement of the suspects that explains it.
Solve the case and you know who did it; turn the page and the story tells you what happened next. Whoever kills leaves the house, so the cast grows smaller as the book goes on, and a clue may point back to something that happened chapters earlier. What people say in the chapters is only talk: the proof is always on the plan.
The cases climb from a four-by-four warm-up to six-by-six plans; three of the thirty-two are Fiendish, and the thirty-third, which closes the story, keeps its solution online. Every case has a hint after the cases and a full, step-by-step solution.
You do not need volume one to read it: the rules are explained again at the start, and the story begins here. If you have solved volume one, you will recognise the house and its people.
Inside the book
- Cases
- 32 in the story, plus a thirty-third that closes it
- Chapters
- 32, each ending in a crime
- Plans
- 8 on four-by-four, 16 on five-by-five, 8 on six-by-six
- Levels
- Warm-up to Fiendish, with three Fiendish cases
- Help
- a hint for every case, and every solution explained step by step
- Format
- paperback, 8.5 × 11 in, 122 pages, full colour
- Language
- English; the Italian edition, Gli Smeraldi di Halmerton, is coming
The house party
Fourteen people. One house, three books.
They live, work or stay at Halmerton House. Volume one sets them in fifty rooms; in volume two the will is read and the house turns on itself; four of them sail for New York in volume three. Who is likely to be in the cellar at midnight, who never goes near the library: by the end, you will know.
Your extras
The thirty-third case, and five more
The last case in the book is told as a story and keeps its solution off the page. Enter the code printed on the final page and one email brings you the full proof of the last night in the ballroom and five new cases from the house, on plans that appear in no volume of the series. Nothing else, ever.
The code alone is not enough. The way in is the door described on the last page of the book: solve what you find there, and the door asks for your email and the code.
Solved a case and want to be sure before you turn to the solutions? Every case has a check code beside its hints: Check your solution.
Read the next one first
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A small group of readers gets the first act of each Halmerton book free, with the explained solutions: Act One of The Halmerton Emeralds now, and The Halmerton Crossing before it goes on sale. A review is never a condition; if you write one, honest is all we ask.
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