Little, Brown Books for Young Readers is set to take the Murdle phenomenon to a younger audience with the publication of the first Murdle Jr. puzzle book, Murdle Jr.: Curious Crimes for Curious Minds: Solve Your Way Through 40 Puzzle Mysteries!, on November 26. The debut title, authored by Murdle creator G.T. (Greg) Karber, will be followed by another puzzle book, Murdle Jr.: Ready, Set, Solve!, and a middle grade novel, Murdle Jr.: Sleuths on the Loose, written by bestselling author Chris Grabenstein along with Karber. Both are set to release in spring 2025.
Murdle, a free daily online logic puzzle in which the player solves a murder mystery, was created in 2022 and quickly amassed a fan base of tens of thousands of users around the world. The success of the online puzzles led to the June 2023 publication of Murdle: Volume 1: 100 Elementary to Impossible Mysteries to Solve Using Logic, Skill, and the Power of Deduction. The collection of humorous, connected puzzles, with illustrations, maps, and codes, was released by Macmillan’s St. Martin’s Griffin imprint, publisher of all of the Murdle books for adults in the U.S. Both Murdle and the upcoming Murdle Jr. books are published by Profile Books’ Souvenir Press imprint in the U.K.
That first title was named Book of the Year at the British Book Awards 2024 and reached bestseller status on the USA Today list in the U.S. and the Sunday Times list in the U.K., where the release broke bookseller records during the 2023 holiday season.
Murdle: Volume 2 was published in September 2023 and Murdle: Volume 3 followed in April 2024. Murdle: The School of Mystery: 50 Seriously Sinister Logic Puzzles joined the list this month, with Murdle: The Case of the Seven Skulls: 64 Wildly Wicked Logic Puzzles scheduled for July 2025.
The idea to bring the brand to younger readers was sparked when the children of Karber’s U.K. editor, Cindy Chan, got hold of the manuscript pages of the first book and fell in love with it. This echoed what Karber had heard from fans of the online puzzles, and the idea of a series of books for middle-grade puzzlers was born. “Murdle requires a certain level of focus that can be beyond younger children,” Karber told PW. “The Jr. books are not easier, necessarily, but they’re more accessible, and with a little less murder.”
The Murdle Jr. puzzles are also more story-driven than the adult versions. “Rather than solving 100 consecutive murders, it’s a story that you puzzle your way through,” Karber said. There is also a lot of humor. “The Murdle puzzles are whimsical and silly, and we wanted to lean into that for the Jr. books.”
Along with the second puzzle book, Little, Brown will publish Murdle Jr.: Sleuths on the Loose, the first novel based on the brand, next May. “We want to expand the world of Murdle through the novels,” Karber said.
Grabenstein, author of the Mr. Lemoncello’s Library series and, with James Patterson, the Treasure Hunters and Max Einstein series, among many others totaling more than five million copies in print, was attracted in part to Karber’s humorous style.
“Greg’s writing style is so funny and a little off-kilter,” Grabenstein told PW. “I grew up on Rocky & Bullwinkle and Mad magazine. There’s some of that same spin in Murdle, which really appealed to me.” When the project was presented to him, he played some Murdle logic puzzles. “I thought they were great and had that paper-and-pencil thinking that I loved as a kid. Every mystery is a game in some way.”
Sleuths on the Loose features a protagonist, Jake, the toughest kid at her Catholic school, Sacred Kidney, who solves crimes with her sidekick Sterling and a bully named Brick. “Chris really captured the voice of the character, that throwback noir tough talker who’s silly but serious,” Karber said. “I could not have asked for better.”
The online and print puzzles, puzzle books for kids and adults, the novels, and a recently released board game—Goliath Games’ Murdle: The Case of the Conspiracy, available at Barnes & Noble—are all separate components set in the same world. Each serves as an entry point to the brand; “they’re connected but not dependent on each other,” Karber said. For example, the Murdle Jr. puzzle books and Murdle Jr. novels have some connections ready to be spotted by sharp-eyed readers and solvers. “There might be hints, but no endings are spoiled.”
How are the worlds of the Jr. books related to the adult versions? “The Jr. books are true to the adult world, but are lighter and softer,” Karber said. “And I love this sense in the kids’ books that the characters from the adult world are famous figures and the detectives look up to them as role models or icons. They’re basically fans of the Murdle series.”
Grabenstein said, “I’ve found that if it’s fun to write a book, it’s usually fun to read it, and this one was fun. I could see adults enjoying the Murdle books while their kids are reading Murdle Jr., and they could come together to discuss it.”
Karber noted, “A lot of people tell me they got their father or son or mother into it, and they’re having a bonding experience over Murdle. It means so much to me that it’s bringing people together. Solving a mystery or reading a book together brings people much closer and in a different way than watching a TV show.”
