The Fellowship of Puzzle Makers by Samuel Burr

If there was a literary genre known as 'Entertainment for Boomers in Retirement' then this book would sit right in there along with the Richard Osman Murder Club series and anything else classed as 'heart-warming' by a reviewer. It's very English and all the characters are either sweet, lovely or eccentric with no true villains to be found.

Before you start the book, prepare yourself to go with the flow and remember it's just a story. There are quite a few points in the plot where you might feel tempted to mutter, 'well I can't see that happening' but just calm yourself and and have another Hobnob. If you like doing crossword puzzles then you might enjoy trying to solve the one that runs through the story, but if you don't (or can't) then never fear, the answer will be presented a few lines later. It will even be in heavy type to make sure you don't miss it.

The Fellowship of Puzzle Makers begins as a club that meets in a room upstairs in a pub, and the members are people who devise various types of puzzle including crosswords, jigsaws and mazes. After a while they all move in together in a big old house and, just as they are mostly getting too old to have children, someone goes and leaves a newborn baby boy on the dooorstep. Of course they adopt him, and baby Clayton grows up to be a young man who wears clothes you might associate with Last of the Summer Wine, and has a fondness for fortified wines such as sherry and madeira.

Clayton is happy enough, but when the lead puzzler (and his surrogate mum) Pippa dies, he is left to solve the greatest puzzle of them all, and that is to find out who his parents are. Of course, Pippa could have just left Clayton a note, but where would be the fun in that? What he gets is a crossword and a number of clues that lead from one location to the next, and if he gets them all right he will have his answer.

It's not exactly the Da Vinci Code, but it's clearly popular as it has been on the Sunday Times Bestseller List. Boomers are evidently keen book buyers.

Comments

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