The Puzzling World of Winston Breen by Eric Berlin, 2007.

Twelve-year-old Winston Breen loves puzzles! He looks for puzzles to solve everywhere, and he also loves to make to give puzzles to other people to solve. Usually, on his sister’s birthday, he likes to set up some kind of puzzle or treasure hunt to lead her to her present. However, the year his sister Katie turns ten years old, Winston almost forgot about her upcoming birthday party, so he didn’t have anything planned. In fact, he was lucky to find a nice present in time for the party, buying a pretty box that he saw in a curio shop at the last minute.

When Katie opens his present at the party and sees an empty box, she’s sure that the empty box must be another of his puzzle tricks. Winston tries to explain to her that it’s just a nice box, and there’s no puzzle this time, but to his surprise, Katie finds a puzzle in the box that Winston didn’t make or put there. It turns out that there’s a secret compartment in the box that contains thin strips of wood with letters on them. It looks like the kind of puzzle Winston loves and one he might have made if he had planned better this year, but as Winston explains to everyone, this isn’t his work. So, whose puzzle is it, and what does it mean?

Everyone at the party tries to guess what the puzzle means, and Winston has to reassure everyone multiple times that it’s really not one of his puzzles. In the end, they all decide to let Winston try to solve the puzzle and tell them the answer. However, Winston can’t seem to solve the puzzle! When he’s unable to solve it, his relatives really begin to believe him that he didn’t make it. Winston’s cousin, Henry, questions him about who had access to the box and where he got it in the first place. When Winston says that it got it at the curio shop, Henry points out that the curio shop owner also likes puzzles and has shared puzzles with Winston before. It seems logical that he’s the original source of this particular puzzle.

When Winston talks to the owner of the curio shop, he says that he had no idea that there was a puzzle in the box that Winston bought. The box was part of a larger set of items that came from the estate of a woman who died recently. The lady was one of the daughters of a wealthy inventor who was one of the founding members of their town, Walter Fredericks. One of Winston’s friends is doing a report about Walter Fredericks for school. The owner of the curio shop says that the last living member of the deceased lady’s family is her sister, who is the town’s librarian, and that maybe Winston should ask her about the puzzle. Winston’s friend needs some information about the inventor for his report anyway, so they decide to go to the library and talk to the librarian. However, when the boys try to talk to the librarian, she suddenly becomes upset when she sees Winston holding the pieces of the puzzle. She starts to cry, asks why “you people” can’t leave her alone, and yells at them to leave the library!

The boys have no idea what made the librarian react like that. Later, they are approached by a strange man who introduces himself as David North. He says that he saw what happened in the library, and he thinks that he can help. He calls himself a treasure hunter and explains that the reason why Winston hasn’t been able to solve the puzzle is that he’s missing some of the pieces. David North shows the boys that he has more of the pieces to the puzzle, and he suggests that they become partners, sharing their pieces with each other to solve the puzzle.

Before talking to Mr. North, the boys didn’t even know that the puzzle was the key to a treasure. They don’t know exactly what this treasure is or how Mr. North knew about it, and they’re not sure that they can trust him. Soon after meeting Mr. North, they are also approached by a man who calls himself Mickey Glowacka. This man explains that he’s also looking for the treasure. The boys ask him what treasure that is, and Glowacka says that the inventor hid a large sum of money. Glowacka also has a set of puzzle pieces, and he says that there is also a fourth set, the set that belongs to the local librarian.

Although Glowacka is more forthcoming than North was, Winston isn’t sure that he’s trustworthy, either. Then, the town librarian comes to see Winston to apologize for her fit at the library, and she explains the rest of the situation to Winston and his family. Walter Fredericks had four children. Except for the librarian, Mrs. Lewis, who was the youngest of his children, the others are all deceased. Their father was a fun-loving man who enjoyed games and puzzles, but the siblings never got along with each other. Mrs. Lewis says that her entire childhood was full of petty squabbles that she and her siblings never knew how to resolve with each other, so they just increased over the years. Before their wealthy father even died, she and her siblings argued over their eventual inheritance. There was one item in particular that all four of them wanted: a valuable ring that was given to their father by a prince to thank him for one of his inventions. After their father died, the four siblings went to claim their shares of the estate, but the lawyer informed them that the ring was not included with the rest of the estate. Instead, their father arranged one last puzzle for his four children to solve together. Each of his four children received a set of puzzle pieces, and they were told that they would have to work together to solve the puzzle and claim the ring. Mrs. Lewis realizes that her father was making one last effort to get his children to stop arguing and join forces, but a single puzzle would never be enough to resolve years of arguments and fighting. Instead, the siblings turned their backs on each other and on the puzzle, so it has gone unsolved for more than 20 years, and the ring is still hidden somewhere.

Since her other siblings died, one by one, their shares of the puzzle pieces have been purchased by other people as their estates have been sold off. That is how North and Glowacka acquired their sets of puzzle pieces from the estates of Mrs. Lewis’s brothers, similar to the way Winston accidentally bought the set that once belonged to Mrs. Lewis’s sister, Livia. Since Livia’s death, someone has become desperate to get as many of the remaining puzzle pieces as possible. Someone broke into Livia’s house soon after her death, before items from her estate were auctioned off, but this person was unable to find Livia’s set of puzzle pieces because they were hidden in the secret compartment in her box. Someone has also broken into Mrs. Lewis’s house to find her set of pieces, leaving her a threatening message. She has also received threatening phone calls and demands for her puzzle pieces, which is why she was so upset when she saw Winston approaching her with puzzle pieces. It seems logical that either North or Glowacka could be the one breaking into houses and threatening Mrs. Lewis, or it could even be both of them.

Mrs. Lewis has decided that the most sensible way to resolve this situation is to do what she and her siblings should have done years ago with each other: arrange for all the interested parties to work together to solve the puzzle and find the ring, then sell the ring and split the money. Winston’s father points out that doing this would mean including whoever it was who’s been threatening her for a share in the treasure, and it doesn’t seem right to reward that person. Mrs. Lewis decides that she’s willing to do that just to settle the matter and remove the reason for the person to keep harassing her. To keep everyone in line and ensure that everyone plays fair with each other, she has recruited a friend of hers who is a retired police officer to act as her representative and a referee for this game. North and Glowacka grudgingly agree to abide by the rules of the game.

Winston’s sister, Katie, declares that the puzzle pieces that were in the box are hers since they were part of her birthday present, and Winston reluctantly agrees, even though he’s the main puzzle person in the family and feels a little possessive of the puzzle because he’s driven to solve it. Of course, he is included in the game, both as his younger sister’s chaperon at group meetings and the family puzzle expert. At first, Katie is reluctant to split her share of the treasure with Winston because of his participation, but their father points out that she will be relying on his help in this game. As the owner of the puzzle pieces, she has the right to decide what Winston’s help is worth to her, so she will control how much of her share Winston will receive, but it’s only right that she let him have something in exchange for his help.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction

I enjoyed this book both for the mystery story and for the puzzles that appear throughout the book. Because Winston loves puzzles so much, he creates little puzzles and brain teasers for readers to solve throughout the book, and some people also give him puzzles and brain teasers of their own. Readers have the opportunity to solve these puzzles themselves, and the answers are in the back of the book.

The main mystery of this book was good. It has a particular set of suspects, everyone who is participating in the search for the ring and the solution to the puzzles. They must work together at the same time as they look at each other suspiciously. However, there is a twist to this story because there are more people involved with this series of puzzles than the obvious ones. There are people who are on the scene and have access to at least some of the clues who are not immediately obvious suspects, and I admit that I didn’t suspect these people at first.

There is a point where Winston himself becomes a suspect for a break-in at Mrs. Lewis’s house. I think the author meant this accusation against Winston to ramp up the suspense in the story, but it just irritated me because Winston is still a kid. He’s not old enough to have a driver’s license, and he’s still in that age where his movements are still limited and monitored by parents. It would have been more credible if he had been a teenager, with more ability to get around on his own, unsupervised and with less accountability.