I received the Sherlock Holmes and the Speckled Band jigsaw as a Christmas present.
While I have come to like the mystery puzzles, where you don’t know the picture in advance, the Bepuzzled ones tend to be uncolourful. As in, all the pieces are the same colour. So it took me a while to get around to attempting this one.
I was pleasantly surprised with the colours in this jigsaw. With the title including “Speckled Band” there were lots of “Speckled” pieces to make the picture interesting. The jigsaw itself is high quality with well cut interlocking pieces. The main difficulty is knowing what goes where on the picture, as there is no guide in the story. All you know is it contains a Victorian interior and objects.
The mystery itself is one of Conan Doyles original stories.
The story starts with the surprise visit of Helen Stoner. She tells Sherlock Holmes of the mysterious death of her twin sister at Stoke Moran Manor house…..
I enjoyed reading the story and deduced (remembered?) the murderer. However the picture, when the jigsaw was completed, it did not give enough clues to work it out. Other reviewers have commented that the mystery couldn’t be solved in a million years without cheating or knowing the story.
Despite that it was a good puzzle and a good story. it’s just the link between them could have been made more obvious.
the jigsaw is available from Amazon at https://amzn.to/3qhuuhd
