Bonus Review - The Killer Isn't June / The Victim Isn't Dead (no spoilers)

 

Unfortunately, I fell for a persistent Facebook ad from Corex Books, and bought The Killer Isn't June, not realising that the format was a rip-off of a book called The Killer Isn't Alice by Iris Starling. I also bought their other book, The Victim Isn't Dead.

The books arrived on Monday, which happened to be the start of a week when I was on annual leave from work. Brilliant, I thought, I've got all week to keep chipping away at these puzzles!

I started The Killer Isn't June at around 7pm. I stayed up past my bedtime, till about 11.30, but by this time I was 99% sure I'd narrowed it down to the correct page. The next morning, I spent about an hour checking a couple of other clues, and then I logged onto the website to submit my answer, which was correct.

I moved onto The Victim Isn't Dead, and this one was solved in about two hours.

When you read all the clues, you realise that you can eliminate quite large sections of the book in one go. As you narrow down the search area, more clues help you to logically work out which pages it can, or can't be.

The adverts imply that you need to work your way through the book, eliminating names. They show people highlighting different clues and different names. If this is how your brain works, then fair enough, but it's not necessary. Just cross out entire pages, and chapters, and names with pencil. It really isn't difficult at all, and it doesn't take long (I spent a bit of time in the first book crossing names out on pages that I should've already eliminated, otherwise I would've solved it even quicker).

I was very disappointed in how easy these books were to solve, especially because they are so expensive for what they are. I haven't tried the original Alice one, although I'm tempted, but from what I've read, it is similarly quite easy to solve so I think it would also be disappointing.

It seems to be impossible to leave a negative review on any of their countless Facebook posts (hmm, how strange?) so I'm leaving one here. Don't waste your time and money on these books!