Murder Mate: USA
Reno, Nevada, 1985. Americans and Soviets play a friendship chess match under the casino lights of the Golden Pawn, a hotel on Virginia Street, and morning after morning somebody in the hotel misses breakfast for good. The FBI sent Special Agent Ruth Calder to keep the peace. She is running out of peace.
A pawn ran past. Who was watching?
Same rules as every Murder Mate: one white piece gives mate, the witnesses tell you which. At the Golden Pawn, the security agents are the white pawns, and one of them may have stepped off post.
Black's last move
Every case shows it with an arrow: a black pawn has just run two squares, straight past one of the agents.
One chance, on move one
For that first move only, the agent beside it may take en passant. Then the agent keeps moving like a pawn, and may even become a queen.
Always a suspect
Sometimes the agent did it. Sometimes the agent only could have. In 9 of the 40 cases, the agent left the post for good.
Case 01: Opening Ceremony.
The crime and the board on the left, the suspects, the witnesses and your verdict on the right. Mr. Reinholt had covered every great match since Reykjavik, and on the opening night he told the hotel bar he had the paperwork to prove something.
Eight rooms under the neon. Eight guests who never check out.
Every square of the board belongs to a room of the Golden Pawn. Every white piece is a guest, always the same piece from one case to the next. You are the white king, Special Agent Calder, and you never move.
Mrs. Lorraine Whitcomb
Mrs. Tamara Orlova
Mr. Hal Brannigan
Colonel Gennady Volkov
Dr. Simon Kessler
Mr. Pieter van Loon
Mr. Sonny Kincaid
Ms. Kay Holloway
Start easy. End at 1800.
You only need to know how the pieces move. From Chief Inspector on, several suspects often break exactly one testimony each: only careful reasoning tells you which one is the lie. Each book stands alone.
Rookie
Mate in one. Sometimes the agent beside the arrow did it.
Cases 01-08 · 5-10 minDetective
Mate in two. Several suspects can kill, and the witnesses must rule them out together.
Cases 09-20 · 20-35 minChief Inspector
Mate in two, and one witness is lying. Counting contradictions will not save you.
Cases 21-33 · 30-60 minCommissioner
Mate in three, one liar, and more than one suspect who almost fits.
Cases 34-40 · 45-90 minOne chess country per book. One chess rule per crime.
