Clue

#1 Who Killed Mr. Boddy? created by A. E. Parker, written by Eric Weiner, 1992.

This book is a collection of short solve-it-yourself mini-mysteries based on the Clue board game. It’s the first in a series that uses the setting, characters, weapons, and other tropes from the board game. Each book in the series contains short mysteries that the reader is urged to attempt to solve before the characters do. The solutions to the mysteries come after each chapter.

The book, like others in the series begins with Reginald Boddy greeting you and welcoming you to his mansion. Then, he tells you about his other guests and asks you to be on the lookout for clues in case anything suspicious happens.

Most of the mysteries involve a crime of some kind, but not all. In the final chapter of the book, it seems like Boddy, our host, has been murdered, and the reader has to solve his murder, just like in a game of Clue. However, Mr. Boddy doesn’t actually die. It becomes a pattern in the series that he seems to have been killed in each book, but he always survives somehow to reappear in other books in the series.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

Stories in the Book:

Who Killed Pitty-Pat? – Someone has killed Mr. Boddy’s annoying parrot!

Who Stole Miss Scarlet’s Diamonds? – Miss Scarlet asks Mr. Boddy to put her diamonds in his safe. Mr. Boddy is sure that he’s the only one who knows the combination to the safe, but someone else finds out.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Green – It’s Mr. Green’s birthday. Various guests give him presents that are the weapons in the Clue game, but Professor Plum really takes the cake by telling Mr. Green that one of his presents is a time bomb (which he says that he thought would be really exciting), and he can’t remember which room of the mansion it’s in. Can the guests find it before it goes off?

The Ghost of Mrs. Boddy – The guests hold a seance to try to contact Mr. Boddy’s late wife, Bessie. Mr. Boddy is happy when the seance is successful and his wife gives raps to indicate that she’s happy and waiting for Mr. Boddy. However, after he goes to bed, the guests realize that one of them was faking the raps just to make Mr. Boddy happy. (A rare instance where they care about his feelings.) Can you find the faker?

Hide and Seek – During a game of hide-and-seek, Mrs. White is accidentally knocked unconscious at the same time that the mansion catches fire. Can you help the other guests find her in time to save her?

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire! – There’s another fire in the mansion, and one of the guests is responsible. Can you determine from their statements which of them caused the fire?

The Secret Changes Hands – Mr. Boddy forms a photography club with his friends. However, Professor Plum, desperate for money to fund his research about which animal blinks the most, takes the opportunity to spy on Mr. Boddy and learn the secret of his discovery for making extra-long-lasting gumdrops to sell to a rival company. Unfortunately, he’s not the only one interested in Mr. Boddy’s secrets, and after he photographs Mr. Boddy’s secret documents, other people try to steal his roll of film. Can you find the person who ends up with it?

The Sleepwalking Killer – A member of Mr. Boddy’s house party starts sleepwalking. After having a midnight snack in the kitchen, this person finds a gun and thinks that they’re supposed to shoot someone. Who is the mysterious sleepwalker?

Miss Feather’s Gossip Column – One of Mr. Boddy’s guests writes a gossip column about the others. Since the gossip columnist is obsessed with analyzing everyone’s manners, it isn’t hard to figure out that it’s Mrs. Peacock. When the others confront her, she refuses to retract the article, and the other guests later try to attack her while wearing masks. Mrs. Peacock demonstrates that she knows who all of the masked people are and invites the reader to figure out who is who.

Who Was Fiddling Around? – Mr. Boddy invites his guests to join him for a musical evening. However, a strange, hunchbacked woman also shows up and plays the violin. Then, Mr. Boddy’s rare Stradivarius violin disappears. It seems that the strange woman took it, but who was the strange woman, really?

The Night the Maid Became a Zombie – Someone hypnotizes Mrs. White to steal Mr. Boddy’s new statuette.

April Fools – A series of April Fools jokes seems to end in murder.

Who Killed Mr. Boddy? – Mr. Boddy tells his friends how much he’s appreciated their companionship since his wife’s death and reveals that he’s made them all heirs in his will. Naturally, someone plots to kill him.