The Game Is Murder

A remarkable, unique novel inspired by an infamous case that embraces experimental, postmodern and metafictional techniques

Nicholas Royle

A mind-bending experiment in crime fiction, throwing light on one of the most enduring mysteries of the twentieth-century

Oliver Harris

I thoroughly enjoyed The Game Is Murder. Strikingly original, but with nods to Golden Age crime, it's an ingenious story of constantly changing perspectives. Different, clever, and highly entertaining!

Guy Morpuss, author of A Trial In Three Acts

A postmodern puzzler that dares to pull apart every trope in the book – literally

Antony Johnston

A significant achievement, packed with insight and invention, The Game Is Murder presents the reader with a fiction killing that seems to defy explanation. It is witty and remarkable and entirely unpredictable

Alex Pavesi, author of Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month, Eight Detectives

A high-energy mystery, both exclamation point and question mark – like Agatha Christie on amphetamines. Imagine a labyrinth packed with ninety-degree turns and spiralling staircases and art on the walls – and a ruthless guide addressing you directly from the page – and you’ve got a sense of The Game Is Murder, a striking, playful novel for neither the faint of heart nor the slow of wit

A.J. Finn, No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author of The Woman In The Window

Move over, Anthony Horowitz. First-timer Ward has entered with a whodunit just as playfully meta as yours...clues like the putative murder weapon will be analysed to within an inch of their lives and all parties in atendance will stand accused, singly and jointly, of crimes and misdemeanours before the author pulls one last rabbit from her hat in a denouement likely to be hailed with both surprise and exhausted relief. Hardcore fans entranced by all those Easter eggs may well turn the last page wondering if they've missed even more

Kirkus

A romp amongst Golden Age tropes, in which the reader is asked to become sleuth in a murder mystery...to solve a puzzle conundrum, the novel becoming a sort of board game come to life. If you like meticulously solving puzzles this spright piece of metaficton will appeal

CrimeTime

A tour-de-force meta mystery. There are puzzles for the reader to solve, frequent authorial intrusions, dozens of sly, knowledgeable references to detective fiction classics and unexpected twists galore. I’ll freely admit I was baffled much of the time, and the last-minute reveal of the murderer was a total surprise, but Ward’s book is so captivating that I eagerly kept turning the pages

The Washington Post

A clever, immersive mystery...through witness testimony, scattered clues, and conflicting accounts, the puzzle unfolds like a classic whodunit - only nothing is quite as it seems

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