Dubious Documents: A Puzzle

When I was growing up I was fascinated by the Griffin & Sabine series—its beautiful art and letters you could pull out of envelopes and pour over. I don’t think I ever really solved the mystery that was behind that story but the fact that there existed a book with letters to read was enough for me. Recently I was offered a review copy of Nick Bantock’s newest book—a series of riddles/puzzles in letters that would uncover one 16 word sentence that would reveal a piece of real wisdom.

Now, I dabble in crossword puzzles but often I find anything harder than a Tuesday or Wednesday level puzzle so infuriating to solve that I give up half way through. This didn’t bode well for me solving the book on my own and true enough, I was stumped by even the first clue. Once I recruited my husband and favourite puzzling pal to work on it with me, and bounce ideas off of, we spent an hour and a half of feverish and intense puzzle solving long after we were supposed to go to bed. The puzzles are clever and range in difficulty, a pleasure to work on with Bantock’s detailed and fascinating art work throughout. We had so much fun solving Dubious Documents that we’ve passed the book on to my parents and then a friend of mine as well, our competitive spirit wondering how fast they would complete it and how we would measure up.

A great gift for people who love puzzles—and the perfect quietly competitive activity for a lazy Christmas morning.