Lateral Mindtrap Puzzles: Challenge the Way You Think & See

by Detective Shadow

Catch crooks, expose con artists, and trap liars! Solve mysteries, explain conundrums, and match wits with evil geniuses! All it takes is paying strict attention to every word of the MindTrap story. It's harder than it looks, because most people picture the stories in their minds, and usually imagine something that isn't there, or overlook a crucial detail. But you can defy the odds. Trap the auctioneer who's trying to sell an old letter addressed to Queen Elizabeth I. How? Because you know she wasn't called "the first" until centuries later when there was a second Queen Elizabeth. Or capture the thief whose victims were dying just before they deposited their paychecks at the bank-just figure out that the killer had poisoned the glue on the bank deposit envelopes. the pictures that accompany each story may be hazardous to your puzzle-solving skills.

Genres: Puzzles, Mystery

96 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2000

Reviews

[Penelope Payne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like this book, but some solutions are nearly impossible to figure out based on the clues given. Others were really sneaky and I loved it. The puzzles were hit and miss for that reason. Still, I have a lot of nostalgia attached to this book so I enjoyed the reread.

[Ravyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is basically a collection of short (one paragraph) stories/situations with a question at the end of each. Your goal as a reader is to answer the question based off of the clues in the story and the picture accompanying the story. Overall, I would guess that I was able to figure out about a third of all the stories, and I consider myself to have a fairly good mind for solving things like this. It was frustrating though because some of the stories were unsolvable (or practically unsolvable) unless you knew about a certain historical event that had to do with the story. Also, a few of the stories had the wrong picture next to it. I assume this was because of poor attention to detail during the printing process, but this error sometimes caused the story to be unsolvable because the crucial clue was supposed to be located in the picture. So I would recommend the publisher to print a revised edition correcting these errors.
Overall though I found this to be a good book to pick up if I was in a short reading slump or needed a break in between chapters since I could just read a few stories and then go back to my normal books. So it may not be perfect, but if you want something quick and fun that will excersise your brain, this might be a nice option.
One additional note though: this is not very appropriate for younger readers because most of the stories involve murders and the pictures, although drawn, can be quite graphic with blood and bodies.

[Sai Thein Than · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is definitely not a book about lateral thinking. some of the puzzles r great. but some r really annoying as very little facts are given or u dunno whether or not the pics r important as the clues. if they've made sure about what to look for in the 1st place, it'd be better. anyway, it's good at least to give your lazy brain some lil work sometimes.

[Jayson Swanson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a must-read for any fan of mind-benders and puzzles. I had a lot of fun reading this and hope to find more books like it in the future.

[Chris Seltzer · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book reads like a collection of Tumblr posts and seems to have had about as much editorial oversight. Skip it and read a more interesting book.