Smallbone Deceased

⚖The case for it

Skip this one if you need a victim you can grieve, because the dead man stays a name in a file, and the puzzle turns on legacies and legal instruments that read slowly. Gilbert practiced law himself, and he isn't fishing for tears; he wants you watching his sleight of hand. In return you get an office rendered so exactly you could swear you clocked in there, plus a fair contest where the investigators hold only the facts you also hold. Its motor is competence and dry humor about how clever people spend their working hours.

— the honest librarian

✕The case against

Gilbert's clockwork runs on trust deeds and office routine, so the solution turns on paperwork it is hard to care about. Nobody mourns Smallbone; he exists to occupy a deed box. Wit carries the book, but outside Bohun and Hazlerigg the staff get one trait apiece, and no death in it weighs more than a misfiled document.

— the honest librarian