Death on the Tracks: The Interactive Murder Puzzle Mysteries

Interactive Puzzle Mysteries #1

by Paul Westmoreland

*YOU choose how to solve a murder in this collection of three gripping stories*

Solve the puzzle. Solve the murder.

Simple, right? Join Arlo Banks in this choose your own adventure mystery story as you race against the clock to catch a killer

Arlo Banks has always wanted to be a detective. And when he solves a fiendish puzzle in The Times, set by an elderly Oxford professor, he might just get his chance.

The reward for solving the puzzle is a trip of a lifetime – a journey on the famous Orient Express. It is a journey full of mystery and murder. Clues are everywhere.

As Arlo Banks, your job is track down the truth. But there are puzzles and riddles at every turn, and the answers are not always as straightforward as they seem.

You choose what path you take, what puzzles you solve, and what answers you take to help you solve a murder.

Your choices could take you to the killer – or lead to a more unfortunate fate.

Genres: Mystery

361 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 26, 2024

About the author

My name is Paul Oliver Westmoreland and I love writing children’s novels.

Right now I’m 34, live in North London, and work for a digital advertising agency on Baker Street. I got married in March and now we’re getting ready for the arrival of our first child. In my spare time I’m working hard on the next Vincent Ward adventure.

My novels introduce young readers to real subjects through exciting, fast-paced adventures. In Cardsharp, Vincent Ward explores the murky art underworld and the life and paintings of Caravaggio, while battling a gang of international thieves and smugglers. My aim is to leaves readers wanting to know more about Caravaggio and art – maybe even go to the National Gallery and see a couple of his paintings. The Find Out More page on this site offers a few places to get started.


This site is a new venture for me and Cardsharp is the first book I’ve posted online. More Vincent Ward adventures will follow, as well as other novels with new characters, as soon as they’re ready.

If you’d like to know more about me or have any feedback, please drop me a line in the box below.

Thanks for reading,
POW

Reviews

[Arany · Rating 3 out of 5]

Death on the Tracks by Paul Westmoreland has an interesting and unique approach, the interactive, puzzle-like style is definitely refreshing and engaging at first. It makes you feel like you’re part of the investigation, piecing together clues along the way.

That said, the actual storylines didn’t grab me as much as I hoped. While the concept is clever, the narratives themselves felt a bit underwhelming and sometimes flat, which made it harder to stay invested. The puzzles and format were fun, but the weak storytelling held the book back for me.

Overall, an okay read, worth checking out if you enjoy interactive mysteries and don’t mind trading strong plot for a more experimental style.

[Annette Langedijk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arlo Banks wint een puzzelprijsvraag van een oude professor. Hij mag als prijs mee op de Oriëntexpress mits hij de professor brieven stuurt van alle plekken die hij bezoekt.
In de trein ontmoet hij Jamie Madden die samen met zijn oom reist. Zijn oom is politiechef en moet een hoge maffiabaas naar Milaan brengen om veroordeeld te worden. De hele trein zit vol agenten omdat ze denken dat hij zal ontsnappen. Maar dan wordt de politiechef vermoord en gaat Arlo achter de dader aan.

Dit is geen gewoon moordmysterie, maar een puzzelboek. Je bent Arlo zelf en beleeft een avontuur. Na elk kort hoofdstukje krijg je een vraag of puzzel om op te lossen. Die vertelt je welk hoofdstuk je vervolgens moet lezen. Ik vond niet alle puzzels makkelijk of duidelijk. De antwoorden moest je in de tekst vinden, maar ook dat was niet altijd logisch.

Het voelt toch gek om hele hoofdstukken over te slaan, maar af en toe moet je ook weer terug. Ik denk dat dit voor kinderen die niet echt van lezen houden wel heel aantrekkelijk is. Net als een aantal andere escape- of gameboeken.
Als je het op school wilt gebruiken, zul je een aantal puzzels wel moeten kopiëren van te voren.

Als je een ‘verkeerde’ keuze maakt, wordt je in het begin weer teruggestuurd om een andere keuze te maken, maar na een aantal hoofdstukken is het verhaal ineens afgelopen… Ik heb hem vervolgens nog een keer gelezen om andere keuzes te maken en dus een ander einde te krijgen. Nog heb ik maar de helft van alle hoofdstukken gelezen en dat vind ik zelf toch wel jammer. Het voelt een beetje als een onaf verhaal. Maar je kunt natuurlijk na afloop ook nog de overgeslagen hoofdstukken lezen en puzzels oplossen.
Overigens; achterin staan de antwoorden op de vragen. Mocht je er niet uitkomen ;-)

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leuk boek voor de niet-lezer. Je lost een moord op, maar kan zelf ook vermoord worden als je de verkeerde keuzes maakt.
Eentje voor in de koffer voor leesgesprekjes.
Makkelijke taal, niet te lange hoofdstukken en puzzels om op te lossen. Niet al te moeilijk.

Ik had hem zelf in een half uur uit. Het voelde wel wat als een onaf verhaal, maar dit is voor iemand die écht niet van lezen houdt prima.

Leeftijd 8/9+. (Vanaf gr. 5)

[Djûke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intro veel personen, wie is wie.
Geen blz. Nummers, maar hoofdstukken.
Leuke puzzels, uiteindelijk kun je de moordenaar ontmantelen. Handig dat de antwoorden achterin te vinden zijn.
Boekintro de voorkant laten zien, eventueel eerste hoofdstuk laten lezen en het volgende hoofdstuk laten kiezen.
Leuk bedacht, zijn meerdere delen.

[Engel Dreizehn · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was great and tricky puzzling. The last was...simple to solve if one knows morse code but took so long to decipher due to nature of sssh. Wish there was an actual reward for deciphering the last code due to how long it took!

[Philip Elder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute, fun, choose your own adventure style except with diegetic puzzles to give you clues for which path to take. There's some wiggle room for multiple reads, but they won't take you very long to see everything.

[Reva · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very fun read with the choices blending seamlessly and a good number of engaging puzzles. Highly recommend reading with your kids as a fun reading activity

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://sarahreads4.wordpress.com/202...

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

im obsessed

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

𝑽𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒈𝒓𝒊𝒑𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒔𝒐 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒇𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈😕 𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆

[Theediscerning · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was only tasked with reviewing the second in this series, but decided to backtrack and try to enjoy the first beforehand. I found three smaller dramas, all in the usual first-person, choose-your-own-adventure style, with you as a master young problem-solver who won an aged professor's millions, to travel the world for him to live vicariously through your larks. We start off on the Orient Express, where we immediately discover a Mafia crook is being deported that way (of course), and the Chief of Police is going to be murdered by poisoned breakfast, the cue for you to jump into assisting the other police (of course) to solve the case.

This proved a rum do from the off – the first branch of the story tree gave the book a chance to kill us off immediately, as a 'look, mate, anything can happen here' kind of lesson. And apparently the itinerary of the train is 1) leave London, 2) have breakfast, 3) see the Alps outside. Apparently death by dehydration takes weeks, and the "The Train Vanishes" scenario is more than risible.

But this gains somewhat from the usual gamebook in that actual puzzles are there for you to be guided to the right chapter. OK, some of them are a bit rum (that's not really how logic puzzles work, specifically) but you can easily dismiss some dafter paths and stick to the intended narrative en route to success. And quite regularly, when there are three options, one is right, one is a fatality or other ending to the story, and the third lets you circle back for a second go.

The second drama follows on straight away, for the middle third, where you have to work out who on an elite Nile cruiser is murdering, and who is robbing, whom. And again things are a bit rum – previously we had an answer that was right, but oddly not the best answer to give; here – while we've been ordered to "always avoid the obvious", there is a puzzle where we are supposed to amble around in circles endlessly, for if we actually solve it correctly we get fingered for mass murder. And what's with the "which of these two is different from the other?" question – it makes no logical sense, in that both are different.

The third and final task here is back in Blighty, at a kind of GCHQ spy headquarters, under threat from a murdering mole. Here there are a couple of more mathematically-themed posers, but the tasks don't completely match the setting of the story as much as they might.

But they're not bad, and I think this won for bang-for-buck; by the time I had mapped all three stories I'd certainly enjoyed a long time within these covers, and felt like I'd had a lot of both narrative and brain-training. So yes there is a lot to nit-pick (it won't be the supremely pedantic child who points out that a square is a type of rectangle), but there is a lot to this. It ends up proving a series is on the way (a fourth book actually out at time of writing this), and it indicates a worthwhile and welcome series. Four stars.

[Janneke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Following the main/correct path in this choose your own adventure puzzle book was quite fun. My issues started however when I started backtracking. I really wanted to read the whole book, including all the wrong choices. I really didn't like the majority of the dead ends though. Some were fine and went as expected. A few however made no sense to me at all and felt like they belonged in a different story. I also really disliked how much responsibility the book puts on you/Arlo. When you fail, ot almost feels as if the book is trying to make you feal guilty for letting the murderer escape. That really took the fun out of it. I feel like instead of that, they should have tried to write some funny fail endings

Edit: I noticed on the cover of the original edition that that book included 3 stories/mysteries. The Dutch translation I read only includes one. I don't know why that it. My review is based solely on that mystery (which I assume is the first of three in the original). I think I might have actually liked this a lot more if there were more mysteries included

[Nita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting. So many Bobby traps. Can you go to the last chapter in one piece ?? Hehe