That sent me in a bit of a rabbit hole. And I'm helpful that way. I regularly read mysteries where the solution feels somewhat within the reader's means - and I would like to try books where that's more deliberate. Where the challenge is more measured - and so where it's more worthwhile to spend some effort in playing.<p>A redditor's "what is fair play" genre review:
<a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/mysterybooks/comments/qlvq1c/what_is_fair_play/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://old.reddit.com/r/mysterybooks/comments/qlvq1c/what_i...</a><p>On honkaku:
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/apr/27/honkaku-a-century-of-the-japanese-whodunnits-keeping-readers-guessing" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/apr/27/honkaku-a-cent...</a><p>There are works that straddle the genre of "your own adventure" - with clue pieces and clippings and whatnots.For example, Murder Off Miami, Dennis Wheatley, original from 1937 but with modern editions, is not a novel. It's literaly a pile of telegrams, clippings, reports. You are supposed to read them, in order or not. and decide on a solution. Then break the seal for the author's solution. Wheatley gets high praise on originality but mixed scores on solvability. Fantastic write up here: <a href="https://denniswheatleyproject.blogspot.com/2011/07/murder-off-miami-1936.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://denniswheatleyproject.blogspot.com/2011/07/murder-of...</a><p>Murder off Miami seems to be online
<a href="https://lparchive.org/Murder-off-Miami/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://lparchive.org/Murder-off-Miami/</a><p>When reading, I'm not mad if the author was misdirecting and "overly ingenious" or something but then I rarely expect that it's worthwhile to put in the detective effort instead of simply enjoying the ride. I would like pointers to books where it's clearly worthwhile - that is, where that effort is rewarding beyond simply enjoying the ride. In fact too many books are flawed because of gross inconsistencies which actually make it hard to enjoy the ride. A "wait? what? NOOOO!!! inconsistent!" is just plain distressing - beyond say, typos or out-of-place language.<p>I agree with the game parallel raised in the reddit thread. In a great boardgame there are several rewards: the fun, the shared fun around the table, the visuals, but also the engineering solvability and strategizability of the game. Randomness is great so it's not always the same winner but I want to have significant control of my destiny (my avatar's - but in a great game that's me). Same for a great (table top) role playing game session: I want both my effort and reward for my effort.