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Solve Your Own Mystery #1

Машина за чудовища

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Ще успееш ли да разрешиш мистерията и да откриеш Машината за чудовища?

Машината за чудовища на доктор Франкълфинк е изчезнала! Йети детективът Клаус Солстааг се нуждае от твоята помощ, за да разкрие крадеца. Дали да се усъмниш в Брамуел Стокър – страховитият вампир? Или може би в Гръндъл и Гринола, пакостливите гоблински близнаци?

Може би трябва да проследиш уликите, свързани с хитрите вещици? Или пък смяташ, че чудовищният син на доктора, Монти, ще те отведе при крадеца? Ти решаваш!

Всеки твой ход води до разрешаването на случая. Нека разследването започне!

224 pages, Paperback

Published November 28, 2023

4 people are currently reading
41 people want to read

About the author

Gareth P. Jones

77 books154 followers
Gareth first started writing when he was very young but it wasn’t until he was in his early twenties that he completed his first novel. Having had it universally rejected he wrote a novel for children called Who Killed Charlie Twig, which received an equally unimpressed reception and remains rightly unpublished to this day.

Some years passed during which Gareth met his future wife, Lisa and began a career in TV, working on shows such as The Big Breakfast and Richard & Judy. Then one day he found himself having lunch at the offices of Bloomsbury. He mentioned the unpublished book to a nice lady called Sarah, who politely suggested that he should send in the first three chapters for her to look at (and most likely dismiss, she thought to herself). Gareth returned home and excitedly told his wife this news, who gently explained that the book he had written actually wasn’t very good, but reminded him that he had recently begun work on a much better idea. This turned out to be good advice. In 2007 Bloomsbury published the first of four books in the series The Dragon Detective Agency and have since published The Thornthwaite Inheritance, Space Crime Conspiracy and The Considine Curse. He has also written a shorter story, Perry’s 5, published by Barrington Stoke and a series of books called Ninja Meerkats, published by Stripes.

Gareth now divides his time between writing books, producing TV programmes, spending time with his wife and son, Herbie and playing the slightly ludicrous number of stringed instruments in his front room.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS

The Dragon Detective Agency: The Case of the Missing Cats was shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Book Prize.
The Thornthwaite Inheritance was shortlisted for eleven local book awards and won seven of them.
The Considine Curse was voted Blue Peter Book of the Year 2012.

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5 stars
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
3,117 reviews6 followers
November 30, 2021
Book Reviewed on www.whisperingstories.com

Solve Your Own Mystery: The Monster Maker made me feel very nostalgic. When I was a kid I loved the choose your own adventure books and this is just like those.

You are the main character in the book as it is written in the second person and you start with an opening mystery, in this case, Dr Franklefink’s precious Monster Maker has gone missing on the day he was having a birthday party so there are lots of suspects. At the end of a section of the story, you are offered two choices of what to do next, such as checking the crime scene or interviewing the party-goers.

By choosing your own path you make your own story and see if you can work out who the culprit is.

The book was good fun and had a wonderful story. It is filled with ghosts, ghouls, and monsters and together with an exciting plot, I can see children adoring this book. I loved making my way through the book, back and forth as I decided which way I wanted the plot to go.

I haven’t seen a book like this since I was a child (80s) and going off how popular they were back then and how different they are, I can see this book being a big hit. The perfect story for middle-graders, especially as they play a part in the story too.
Profile Image for Knigoqdec.
1,183 reviews188 followers
February 25, 2024
Забавлявах се с тази книжка, защото е създадена с идеята да бъде модерна книга-игра за младежи, която е шарена и богато населена с доста шантави създания. Идеята да бъдеш асистент детектив и да имаш възможността да проследиш всякакви неочаквани обрати радва. Дори ми се струва, че читателят има повече възможности, освен предоставените - аз например си бях измислила друга теория за изчезването на Машината за чудовища :D
Детективът йети е едновременно достъпен за разбиране образ и умел специалист, който няма да изостави читателя да се лута и да му е трудно. Всички останали са от шантави по-шантави - верни на първоизточника си, но и достатъчно хитри, че да се опитват да се измъкнат от зоркото око на нещотърсачите.
Profile Image for Mehsi.
15.1k reviews454 followers
June 15, 2022
A fun Choose Your Own Adventure, this time with monsters and missing machinery. Will you find the suspect? What ending will you find?


I have had this book on my mind for a while and I finally was able to get it last month~ dances

In this book a party ends up with a machine missing. Mr. Franklefink’s precious Monster Maker has disappeared… but who can have stolen it? Was it the vampires? Was it one of the kids at the party? Was it the witches? Everyone is suspect and I love it! Haventry (the town we are in now) is such an interesting place and I would love to just dive into the book and check it out. See all the things that happen there, meet up with monsters. Ah! Let me in~

At times I got serious Murderville vibes. It was that the Yeti was competent otherwise it would have been a full 100% feels. For now a bit around 50%. Haha. We get hired to be an assistant and it is mostly up to us to do things and find things.

So far I only have found one route. But no worries, I will be reading the rest of the possible routes as well! In fact, planning on doing that today (March 29). I am excited to see what the other routes will bring and if they will all end at the town hall or if there are also other settings! I am excited for it! I did like the route I found at the moment and how we start off suspecting one or two people and then the story unfolds and you keep getting more and more suspects. Eventually, before the ending, I was able to narrow it down to around 3 suspects. In the end my suspect wasn’t there, but I had the kind of monster right, haha. XD The author did a really good job at making everyone suspect. Everyone had an motive and otherwise they would get it if the story went on. It was just so much fun and it made it more mysterious and puzzling and I love it! I am curious if the other endings have other suspects/other people who have done it. I would hope so!

Though I am not looking forward to going to the Zombie Clown route. I mean, F clowns. I don’t like those. Yep, this girl is terrified of clowns (well with the exception of Pipo and Bassie XD). But I have to go that route as well. shivers

I am already delighted that there aren’t many more routes and that it was fairly easy to follow. I have read a few Choose Your Own Adventure books and I can remember one that had 30+ endings. Which wasn’t fun. I am all for fun routes along with bad endings, but keep it at max 10 because otherwise I will just be confused. Haha.

I also like the What If at the end, that chapter was a nice touch! Along with a way to start over from certain points… well if you want to, because do you want to change the ending?

The art was also fantastic, I really love Louise Forshaw’s style of drawing it fitted well with the book~

All in all, this was tons of fun! And I cannot wait to get the next book in the series~ I would recommend this book to all!

Review first posted at https://twirlingbookprincess.com/
Profile Image for Milan.
5 reviews
January 17, 2025
I give this book a four star rating but I would rather put 4.8 stars because it’s cool how you can choose your own ways and feel the situation. It’s nice because it’s my personal decision.
Profile Image for Eleah.
320 reviews
January 15, 2024
A cute and fun middle-grade choose-your-own-adventure book.
I enjoyed that the set-up of the book made it easy, and even encouraged you, to go back and read the other choices. That said the ending I got first I was most satisfied with, but the second ending I got made the most sense.
I'm a big believer that just because you are an adult it doesn't mean you should stop reading "children's" books.
Profile Image for Ivana.
635 reviews56 followers
June 12, 2022
Krásna urban fantasy detektívka, kde si čitateľ môže vybrať, ktorým smerom sa bude v príbehu uberať. Niekoľko možných koncov, viacero línií príbehu a vy sami ste asistentmi veľkého detektíva Klausa - snežného muža.
Ja som sa bavila, verím, že deti sa budú tiež :-)
Profile Image for Tim Robinson.
1,099 reviews55 followers
June 9, 2023
Much, MUCH better than I expected. And Klaus the Yeti is one of the world's greatest bosses.
Profile Image for Ал Торо.
Author 21 books39 followers
September 27, 2025
Книгата е едно разочарование, което хем е много близо до истината като жанр, идея и стил, хем не я достига в нито едното направление. Принципно бих я препоръчал за деца между 8 и 12, като става и за малко по-големи или малки, но честно казано може да им намерите и по-интересни четива.

Пълно ревю тук: https://knigi-igri.bg/articles/review...
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews

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