Udaipur, 1932. The monsoon has cut the palace off from the world, the telephone line is down, and guests keep dying at a rate of roughly one per evening. Inspector Rao of the Bombay police was only supposed to stay for the weekend.
Every case is a real chess position, and every square belongs to a room of the palace. The white pieces are the guests, and all of them had a reason.
On a real chessboard, or scan the QR code on the case: the position opens on your phone, ready to play, with no engine.
Only one white piece moves, whatever Black tries. Several suspects can still pull it off. List them all.
The cook, the butler and the palace clockmaker saw who went where. From Chief Inspector on, one of them is lying.
Who gave mate, in which room, and how. Exactly one answer per case, checked by an independent solver before printing.
Every case fills a double page: the crime on the left, the suspects and the witnesses on the right. Here is case 01, the first and easiest of the forty.
1234
567Case number, level, how many moves the killer needs, and a rough thinking time.
A short story: who died, and why half the palace wanted them to. Then who stood around the victim, which is to say the black pieces.
A real chess position. Every square belongs to a room, drawn with thick walls and a letter: Library, Mirror Hall, Monsoon Courtyard, Stepwell...
Scan it and the position opens on your phone, set up and ready to play, with no engine to spoil it.
Every white piece is a guest of the palace, with a name and a room. The white king is you, Inspector Rao. The white pawns are guards.
The staff saw who went where. Each statement is one of three sentences, defined in the rules, so nothing is vague.
Who gave mate, in which room, and how. The answer, and the reasoning, are at the back of the book.
Only one white piece moves. Black answers with anything he likes, and the killer still mates in the number of moves the case states. Several suspects can usually manage it on the board. That is the point.
“X never left the Library.” Every square X touched was in the Library.
“Nobody set foot in the Stepwell.” No suspect passed through it.
“Somebody went through the Kitchens.” The killer crossed it at least once.
Name the guest, the room where the mating move lands, and the kind of mate: back-rank, smothered, queen's kiss, or named after the piece. From Chief Inspector on, one witness is lying: find out who.
You only need to know how the pieces move. The cases get harder as the book goes on, and the last ones will keep strong club players busy.
Mate in one. Anyone who knows how the pieces move.
Cases 01-08 · 5-10 minMate in two, and the obvious check is usually a trap.
Cases 09-20 · 15-30 minFive suspects on a busy board, and one witness is lying.
Cases 21-33 · 30-40 minMate in three. One liar. Trust nobody, least of all the Maharani.
Cases 34-40 · 30-45 minSame rules everywhere, a new palace, new suspects, and one chess rule that turns into a plot: promotion hides an impostor, a discovered check needs an accomplice. Each book stands alone.