Playing the Game

Puzzles are much in vogue at present, and this fashion is reflected in contemporary crime writing. In many ways, it seems to me that the public enthusiasm for puzzles such as Wordle and Murdle is comparable to the 'play fever' which swept the western world after the First World War and the influenza pandemic. This is the zeitgeist, I think. People want to have fun, and who can blame them?

Not me, that's for sure, because I've always been a puzzle fan. Bethan, my lovely editor at Head of Zeus introduced me to a mystery game called Cryptic Killers about a year ago, and I've enjoyed several games of that. Back in May, I took part in a Murdle game hosted by the creator, G.T. Karber. Ten days ago I was chatting with my editor at HarperCollins about this trend and last week (after an encouraging lunch meeting with the British Library folk and then a coffee with Bethan and the Head of Zeus and their publicist) I rounded the day off in style, as I had the pleasure of participating in an interactive mystery game hosted by my agent James Wills and his company Watson, Little.

This was a game devised by Jury Games and it took place at the Theatre Deli in London. The literary agents were joined by a group of their clients, all of whom are crime writers. A very convivial bunch of jurors, and we had a lot of fun trying to figure out what was going on. How did we do? Ah, that would be telling...

Just as enjoyable were the conversations in a local pub after the game was over. I had the pleasure of chatting with a group of lovely people, including Alex Marwood, Ajay Choudray, Victoria Dowd, Luke Chilton, and Alex Pavesi. I've often made the point that the life of a writer has plenty of downs as well as ups, but that was one of those days when I was acutely aware that overall it's a hugely pleasurable existence.