This article first appeared in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette July 27, 2025

What if a detective reinvestigated the most famous, unsolved murder case of the century? What if that detective were you?

From first-time British author Hazell Ward comes a book that features a cold case from 1970’s England that it asks readers to solve – “The Game is Murder” is as ingenious and unconventional as it sounds..

Also engaging and enjoyable, this book will draw in mystery readers, especially those who like to try to solve a case before the end of the book.

Through an interactive, second-person perspective, the reader becomes the protagonist and must make choices along the way, not so much to move the story along, but instead a feature as the story moves along. Readers are not just reading a book – they are active investigators in the case.

Invited to a murder mystery party, readers are asked to play detective to a case involving an English lord and his notorious family in a creepy manor house. The goal? Hear every witness, scrutinize every clue, and place trust in no one.

“The Game is Murder” flips well-known mystery tropes and this book hits many of them: Circle of suspects, amateur detective, questionably reliable narrator, suspicious motives, double crossers and, of course, red herrings.

It’s a slow build, but the journey is part of the fun. (Or the journey might seem like a lot of fun work, depending on how a reader looks at it.)

Solving this case takes patience and meticulous skill, and “The Game is Murder” is a bit like a Choose Your Own Adventure book (for those who remember those) on steroids.

To Ward’s credit, she points out early on that the reader cannot sit back and coast: This book is an undertaking. If nonchalantly eating chocolate and absorbing a good murder mystery is your thing, this book is not for you. You can still eat the chocolate, but you’ll need breaks to plot out your version of a murder board to figure out who committed the crime.

From the author’s warning to readers, in the preface:

“If you were the sort of reader who habitually ignores the Big Paragraphs, or skims over the Descriptive Bits, you might as well put this book down, right now, and get yourself a nice cozy crime novel instead.”

Throughout the book, sometimes scenes are observed and deconstructed from various characters’ viewpoints, which is fun, or tedious, depending on a reader’s preference. But if puzzles are your scene, then this book will thrill you.

You, the detective, are given evidence as the story progresses to try to solve the murder alongside the suspects themselves. For example, sprinkled throughout the book are menus, maps of homes and crime scenes, contracts and sworn testimony. It’s the job of the reader to pick through the clues and evidence and form opinions.

Among the witty banter and dialogue, you will find that occasionally the narration stops to present multiple-choice questions – complete with diagrams – for readers to think through.

What makes this book more entertaining is that it’s basically a mystery within a mystery. Readers who love true crime podcasts, and entertainment of that ilk, will be drawn to this like armchair detectives to a streaming docuseries.

The word “captivating” doesn’t begin to capture the full breadth of this book, but it’s not for everyone – who wants reading time to involve this much thinking? (A lot of us do!)

If you loved your criminal justice class and the homework that went with it, you’ll equally love this book. Otherwise, cozy up with a classic whodunnit and leave the mental gymnastics and legwork to fictional detectives.