The puzzle in the priory

I’ve had a right old “booky” week this week.  It started off with a really enjoyable afternoon on Monday when my pal, Jane Finnis, emerged from her Yorkshire lair, crossed the Pennines to the broad, sunlit uplands of Greater Manchester and joined me in a double-handed talk in Dukinfield library.  There was a really good turn-out and a very lively discussion.  Jane writes mysteries set in Roman Yorkshire (I know, I know – there wasn’t such an entity as Yorkshire in Roman times and Jane, a purist, winces every time I say it, but you know what I mean!) and I write about the 1920’s.  That’s a pretty wide historical span which the audience seemed to thoroughly enjoy talking about.  What have the Romans ever done for us? asked Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Given us lots to talk about, that’s what!

The second “booky” event was a party on Saturday evening to celebrate A Hundred Thousand Dragons coming out. It took place at the Priory, the local tennis club (Dad’s been a member of the club since 1940-something!) and it was a great evening.  The weather was perfect and the clubhouse, which had been looking at little bit down-at-heel, had been freshly decorated. They’d had a flood a couple of months ago which wrecked the floor; gloom.  The insurance kicked in; rejoice!

Daughter Helen and I had spent the previous couple of weeks thinking about suitable games for the evening.  It’s not really a “dancing” do but we did feel people needed something.  So we got eight different detective-story covers, including old favourites such as Paul Temple, Sexton Blake and Sherlock Holmes, made them into jigsaws and gave each table a jigsaw puzzle to solve.  The “game” element came from the fact that Helen and myself had mixed up all the pieces, so that everyone had to hunt their particular pieces off the other tables.  Quote of the night was Rob White saying, in a determined Scottish way to his neighbours as he nabbed a jigsaw piece of Death On The Nile, “That’s my camel!”

Peter wondered what to wear and plumped for a very smart blazer and flannels.  He read an extract from the first chapter, which takes place in Claridges, and gosh, did he look the part!

I can’t reproduce jigsaw puzzles (a computer screen is really awkward to cut up into bits!)  but we did have another game.  Helen put together the Jack Haldean (clue!) Detective Codeword.  Here it is, if you’d like to have a go.

The Jack Haldean Detective Codeword!

				12
11	23	17	9	6	16	20	5	13	16	2	5		19	23	16	2	11
				16										6		14
				23			12							15		25
	1	16	23	10	21	16	6	5	14	16	20			14		17
				3			17			26						6
				16		22	17	2	4	14	2	13		25		25
				18			5							18		14
	4	16	6	6	17	8	11		9	21	2	18	6	6	14	2
			13				9			17				6
10		3	18	11	11	3	16	2	7	6	14			16		3
18			20				18			3		7	17	18	11	17	20
5	16	4	4	14	2		20			14				20		9
20										11		4				18
16	23	24	15	18	9	9	16	6				15				25
7												20	17	17	11	14

A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26

How to play:

Solve the codeword by filling the letters in with the corresponding numbers, and using the clues to work out what the words are.

All the words have a murder mystery theme – three of them are detectives, and five of them are weapons! Good luck…

Here's some clues to get you going.  Letter 1 is J, 4=G, 6=L, 12=B and 19=Z. (It's the name of an old police series, but you should be able to get it.)