Sherlock Holmes' Rudimentary Puzzles: Riddles, Enigmas and Challenges Inspired by the World's Greatest Crime-Solver

Unfortunately, the puzzles in this particular volume are almost exclusively what were called in my youth 'word problems,' that is, math problems couched in a brief story. I am good at figuring out 'who-dun-it's but am significantly mathematically handicapped. I can recognize a word problem but am completely unable to even begin to solve it. The 'who' puzzles are intriguing but I can't evaluate the problems. However, if you are math-capable AND enjoy who-dun-it's, you will probably love this book.

Read the stories a couple of times to make sure you do not miss something. Remember, Sherlock lived in 19th century England, not 21st century USA.

While some of the riddles are interesting, too many are just math, and some aren’t solvable or even illogical. As an example, one question asks whether the number of people who have shaken hands with an odd number of people is itself odd or even. This isn’t a question one can answer without further limiting g information, of which there is none. But to make matters worse, the “solution” offered by the book is that it must be even because there are always exactly two people involved in shaking hands and therefore “the total number of people shaking hands from any subset of total handshakes must be even.” The answer isn’t addressing the question as asked, so either the author couldn’t ask the question properly, or he exercised such poor reasoning that Sherlock Holmes would be spinning in his grave if he were real and could know what was being done in his name.

Fun for Holmles fans, interesting for anyone who likes to think. The idea behind the puzzles was more than simply to solve them, it is to learn the underlying principles of HOW to reach that conclusion. Otherwise, one is merely guessing. Perhaps a thorough read of the beginning of the book before jumping straightaway into the riddles would improve the ratings.

No good. Riddles are just plain moronic. The first one is solved by somehow realizing that the lawyer could not be a woman. So..there’s that.

I'm delighted with the book, the speed of delivery and everything else.Can we, however, stop putting stickers on books. They destroy covers. There are adhesives that do not tear book covers.

Great. Thanks.

Si eres fan de Sherlock y te gusta desafiar a tus alumnos este libro es perfecto para hacerlos pensar. La serie va desde muy fácil a más complicado, este es perfecto para un intermediate.