The Game Is Murder

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

THE MOST ORIGINAL, META MURDER MYSTERY OF 2025, PERFECT FOR FANS OF STUART TURTON, ANTHONY HOROWITZ AND AGATHA CHRISTIE!

THIRTEEN GUESTS. THIRTEEN SUSPECTS. AN IMPOSSIBLE MURDER.
A MYSTERY YOU MUST SOLVE - OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES...

What if a Great Detective reinvestigated the most famous unsolved murder case of the century?

What if that Great Detective was you?
You have been invited to a very special murder mystery party.
Thirteen guests have been gathered - rather, thirteen suspects.

But only one of them is a murderer. And only you can find them.
Your task is simple. Listen to the witnesses, examine the evidence, and solve the case.
Be careful. Trust no one. In this story, all may not be as it seems.
The ultimate murder mystery is yours to solve.

A word of warning, though - catch the killer, or face the consequences...

'A high-energy mystery, both excalamation point and question mark...a striking, playful novel' A.J. Finn

'Witty and remarkable and entirely unpredictable' Alex Pavesi
'Strikingly original, but with nods to Golden Age crime...different, clever, and highly entertaining!' Guy Morpuss
'A postmodern puzzler that dares to pull apart every trope in the book - literally' Antony Johnston
'A remarkable, unique novel inspired by an infamous case' Nicholas Royle

© Hazell Ward 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critics Review

A tour-de-force meta mystery. There are puzzles for the reader to solve, frequent authorial intrusions, dozens of sly, knowledgeable references to detective fiction classics and unexpected twists galore. I’ll freely admit I was baffled much of the time, and the last-minute reveal of the murderer was a total surprise, but Ward’s book is so captivating that I eagerly kept turning the pages
The Washington Post
A high-energy mystery, both exclamation point and question mark – like Agatha Christie on amphetamines. Imagine a labyrinth packed with ninety-degree turns and spiralling staircases and art on the walls – and a ruthless guide addressing you directly from the page – and you’ve got a sense of The Game Is Murder, a striking, playful novel for neither the faint of heart nor the slow of wit
No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author of The Woman In The Window
A significant achievement, packed with insight and invention, The Game Is Murder presents the reader with a fiction killing that seems to defy explanation. It is witty and remarkable and entirely unpredictable
author of Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month, Eight Detectives
A romp amongst Golden Age tropes, in which the reader is asked to become sleuth in a murder mystery...to solve a puzzle conundrum, the novel becoming a sort of board game come to life. If you like meticulously solving puzzles this spright piece of metaficton will appeal
CrimeTime
A postmodern puzzler that dares to pull apart every trope in the book – literally
Antony Johnston
I thoroughly enjoyed The Game Is Murder. Strikingly original, but with nods to Golden Age crime, it's an ingenious story of constantly changing perspectives. Different, clever, and highly entertaining!
author of A Trial In Three Acts
Move over, Anthony Horowitz. First-timer Ward has entered with a whodunit just as playfully meta as yours...clues like the putative murder weapon will be analysed to within an inch of their lives and all parties in atendance will stand accused, singly and jointly, of crimes and misdemeanours before the author pulls one last rabbit from her hat in a denouement likely to be hailed with both surprise and exhausted relief. Hardcore fans entranced by all those Easter eggs may well turn the last page wondering if they've missed even more
Kirkus
A remarkable, unique novel inspired by an infamous case that embraces experimental, postmodern and metafictional techniques
Nicholas Royle
A mind-bending experiment in crime fiction, throwing light on one of the most enduring mysteries of the twentieth-century
Oliver Harris

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