The Puzzling World of Winston Breen

The Puzzling World of Winston Breen was written by Eric Berlin, who creates puzzles as a profession.

Kids who enjoy puzzles will love this book, which is full of them. And the plot is a puzzle itself.

Winston Breen gives his sister a box for his birthday. It has a hidden compartment containing parts of a puzzle and the rest of the book is about his struggle to solve the puzzle. He must contend with some greedy adults that have other parts of the puzzle and gets into some scary situations as a result. The stakes keep getting higher.

Since I don't especially like doing puzzles myself I skipped most of the ones in the book (the answers are in the back with footnotes showing where to find them) but had to finish reading to find out the solution to the mystery.

Besides the challenging story, this book has believable characters and a realistic setting.

It's the sort of book that will appeal to boys who are reluctant readers, but not only to them.

I enjoyed reading it a lot and hope the author writes more books in the future.