Five-Minute Mini-Mysteries

by Stan Smith, Kathleen O'Malley (Illustrator)

Detective Stanwick is back! And you are about to be challenged by 30 exciting mysteries. Each one takes only about five minutes to read. Every puzzle combines features of the traditional whodunit (physical clues, red herrings, means, motive, opportunity, time sequences) with logic puzzles (true-false statements, matching suspects with occupations, even a little math).
Are you up to a little sleuthing and deductive reasoning?
· The Case of the Suspicious Fire : Did the owner try to burn down his own store? Or was he really home asleep?
· The Megaplast Mystery : Someones threatening the life of The Megaplast Corporations vice president. Can you find the culprit? Youll get some confusing facts, but if you use your smarts, youll arrive at the answer. And many more!

Genres: Mystery, Childrens, Fiction

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Librarian Note: There are several authors in the database with this name. This is Stan^^Smith. For other authors with this name see: Stan^Smith, Stan^^^Smith, Stan^^^^Smith, Stan^^^^^Smith, Stan^^^^^^Smith, Stan^^^^^^^Smith, Stan^^^^^^^^Smith, Stan^^^^^^^^^Smith, Stan^^^^^^^^^^Smith, Stan^^^^^^^^^^^Smith, and Stan^^^^^^^^^^^^Smith.

Stan^^Smith has written whodunits and puzzles.

Reviews

[Meredith Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was too hard to solve!!!

[Christine B · Rating 3 out of 5]

The mysteries were much too hard to solve!

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of interesting little mysteries! Hard to solve too! Just how I like em.

[Callie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quick enough stories, that do require a bit more mature readers for understanding of some of them. The actual puzzles would fall into three to four difficulty levels. The first would be logical and relativity easy. The second would be a bit of thinking. The third, however, would require a heavy bit of Moon logic to make the leap. The final level if you want to go further than the Moon logic is not possible without the answer key in the back and in some cases hasn't eliminated all the options which means that the solution is not a true answer. This seems like it's geared towards youth age group I wouldn't recommend it to anyone below young adult and even then I think they would not particularly care for some of the content.

[Cheryl]

I did read every one until I found out if it was a straight logic puzzle (I'm no good at those) or a liars v. truth-tellers puzzle (ditto). Of the others, some required obscure knowledge, others were ridiculously obvious... all in all, pretty much a waste of time for me. But since I didn't do the work, and since everyone's taste in, and talent for, puzzles is different, I won't speak of a recommendation.

March 2022

[Lowell Carranza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each mystery was very interesting and my brother and I love solving these cases but instead of taking 5 mins, it takes us 15 mins to think of what to put because both of us keep arguing about who did it or why they did it.

[Vickie Dinsmore · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an SLP, I read juvenile fiction with an eye for how I might use it with students. This is a great book for average to gifted juvenile readers. It could introduce them to the genre of mystery and get them hooked.

[Ericka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some were quite difficult, some needed paper, some I just knew the answer but not why, and others I had figured out before finishing reading. It's a good mix. Giving to my 13 year old boy to read.

[Kyra Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun !

[Kevin Magpoc · Rating 2 out of 5]

What do you mean, childrens genre, Goodreads? Even with the mystery that starts out with a bloody corpse, wall splatter and pool lovingly illustrated at the top of the page?

[Isabella · Rating 3 out of 5]

2nd time

Been a couple of years but this is still an enjoyable collection

[Lia B. 8A19]

I thought that these riddles and mysteries were intriguing and they were good for challenging siblings to solve. It was a nice quick way to spend time.