852. "Secret Agent Brainteasers" by Sinclair McKay -- 2-Stars

Secret Agent Brainteasers by Sinclair McKay – 2 Stars

Publisher: Quercus

ISBN: 9781635061352

I debated whether I should even review and rate this book. Let me start that I enjoyed the historical narratives and real spy tales. However, being an avid puzzler, particularly doing extremely difficult logic problems, I encountered so many puzzles that had multiple solutions or had errors. This is an UNCORRECTED COPY I am reviewing, so maybe the fallacies I report to the publisher will be corrected.

My expectation though was to find puzzles used directly in determining spy capabilities. Instead I found puzzles that were common folk teasers and had no relevance to determining spy capabilities. If you are reading this book to evaluate yourself and boost your hopes of being a spy, intelligence employee, detective, or investigator, drop that idea. However, if you just enjoy teaser games, enjoy this book. So many of the puzzles I found are simply word manipulation challenges. Likewise, many are or similar to puzzles already published in the let-me-trick-you category.

So, how do I rate this book? It did not meet MY expectations as set by the book’s description that imagined that these puzzles could test for spy candidates. The typographic errors, such as Chapter 2 puzzle #6 where two underscores are missing before “AR/” , can be overlooked in an UNCORRECTED copy. However, when at least 10+% of the puzzles I did have at least one alternate solution, such as Chapter 1 puzzle 4 where one could use the logic that the sector with 11 and 22 in outside circle and 20 on inside should be the numbers of the combination because it’s the only sector where the three numbers increase from left to right, then it already presents only a 50-50 chance of success -- one no spy would take. I’d like to rate this 3 or 4 because these word-teasers (most not really testing one’s logic) together with the good narrative history and tales would be enjoyed by many people. However, I’m being asked what my opinion is, and that has to be based on my expectations from its description versus what I discovered. Also, I couldn’t commit myself to doing more than the approximately 30-40 puzzles because of the issues I found! Thus, I can only rate this 2-star.

Reviewer: Rich