The Fellowship of Puzzle Makers by Samuel Burr

Book Review Aug 07, 2024

My review

4/5 stars

This book follows Clayton Stumper trying to figure out who he is after the death of his adoptive mother, the leader of a group of puzzle-makers.

I loved the dual viewpoint and dual timeline of this novel. The audiobook provided expert narration from Russell Tovey and Penelope Keith; it provided depth and emotion to the characters that I wonder if I would have missed had I just read off the page. Listening to the two timelines play out consecutively kept me invested, as did the character development for both main leads.

Pippa was an utterly relatable woman - someone who had found herself missing opportunities for the life she wanted and isolated from society at large, taking it upon herself to create a family for herself later in life. Clayton has grown up around old people and lived a sheltered life - the death of his most familiar person, and the stability in his life so far, pushes him out of comfort zone to explore an unfamiliar and unsettling world; he was warm and charming and very likeable.

The puzzle element of the story gave it a unique edge that did draw me in to start with. Through a combination of being more focused on the characters and listening to the audiobook, I found that the novelty wore off pretty quickly and I was happy to let the puzzles pass me by. I can imagine, however, that if I was reading a print copy, I would have easily found myself distracted by solving the puzzle.

The only thing that stopped from giving this book the full five stars is that I found the big mystery of who Clayton's parents were quite easy to solve. The clues were quite obviously littered throughout the story, to the point where the reveal felt a bit anti-climactic.

Overall, this was a warm, life-affirming, charming read that I really enjoyed listening to.

Book blurb

Clayton Stumper is an enigma.

He might be twenty-five years old, but he dresses like your grandad and drinks sherry like your aunt.

Abandoned at birth on the steps of the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers, he was raised by the sharpest minds in the British Isles and finds himself amongst the last survivors of a fading institution.

When the esteemed crossword compiler, Pippa Allsbrook, passes away, she bestows her final puzzle to him: a promise to reveal the mystery of his parentage and prepare him for his future.

Yet as Clay begins to unpick the clues, he uncovers something even the Fellowship have never been able to solve - and it's a secret that will change everything...