What's a detective crossword?
It's a normal, friendly crossword with a mystery folded into it. Under every grid sits a case file: a one-line crime, five suspects, and three questions any detective worth their magnifying glass has to answer — who did it, where it happened, and what they used. You don't answer them by guessing; you answer them by solving the crossword, because every scrap of evidence is woven into the grid itself. As far as we know, nobody else makes crosswords quite like this — it's the puzzle we built this site to build.
How the evidence works
Three mechanisms, three questions, three different kinds of detective work:
- WHO — the missing alibi. Each suspect's alibi rests on one word. Four of those five words are genuinely answers in the crossword; one appears nowhere in the grid. That suspect is lying, and lying suspects are our culprits. The checking is proper detective work and it's all yours: when you're satisfied an alibi word is in the grid, mark that suspect with a ✓ — and when you've found your liar, give them the ✗.
- WHERE — the shaded squares. A handful of squares in the grid are tinted blue. Read the letters that land in them — left to right, top to bottom, the same way you read a page — and they spell the scene of the crime. The location reveals itself gradually as you solve, which is exactly as dramatic as it sounds.
- WHAT — the number code. The case file lists a short code like 14 · 3 · 22 · 9. Each number points at a square: count the white squares only, left to right, top to bottom, and write each letter you find into its box. Counting them out is half the fun — detectives dust for prints, we count squares.
Crack all three — one ✗ on the suspect board, the location and item written into their boxes — then press Make your accusation. If your who, where and what all hold up in court, you get the full CASE CLOSED ceremony (we don't skimp on confetti) — plus the culprit's motive, because every good mystery owes you a why on the last page.
Detective school: cracking your first case
- Read the suspect board before you start. Five alibi words are listed, and four of them are answers waiting inside the grid. If TICKET is someone's alibi and you're staring at a six-letter slot ending in T… detectives call that a lead.
- Don't trust a hunch — verify it. You might suspect the culprit early (maybe only one alibi word can't fit anywhere). Lovely detective work! But the accusation needs the where and the what too, and those only emerge from a finished grid.
- Jot the location as it emerges. Every crossing you solve might drop a letter into a shaded square. Copy them into the WHERE boxes as you go — MU_E_M stops being a mystery fast, and a detective who takes notes beats one who trusts their memory.
- Save the code for last. Counting out the numbered squares is the satisfying final ritual before the accusation — do it once the grid is full, so every square you land on already has its letter waiting.
Cozy crimes only
Nobody gets hurt in our mysteries. The crimes are strictly of the vanished-prize-pumpkin variety: raided piñatas, missing trophies, a gnome collection running one gnome short. Suspects turn out to have been photographing ducks or holding the ladder the whole time, and the culprit's motive is usually jealousy over a blue ribbon. It keeps the game fun for kids, safe for classrooms, and honestly funnier than anything grimmer would be.
Is every case fair?
Yes — and here's the honest mechanics, because we think the machinery is part of the charm. Our engine builds a fresh crossword first, exactly like the ones on our mini crossword page. Then the case is assembled from that grid: four real answers become verified alibis, a fifth word the grid doesn't contain becomes the lie, the location is a word genuinely hiding in the grid's letters in reading order, and the code points at squares that really spell the item. Nothing is random-for-random's-sake, no case has a trick answer, and every question is decidable from the solved grid alone. More on our methods on the how we make our puzzles page.
Three case difficulties
The picker above sets the size of the crossword, which sets the size of the investigation. Open-and-Shut (5×5) is a quick lunchtime case — a mini grid and a short location. Tricky Case (7×7) adds more evidence to sift. Cold Case (9×9) is the full inspector experience: twenty-odd clues, longer locations, and real time for the suspect board to whittle down one chip at a time. Your solved-case tally and puzzle history are kept per difficulty, and the engine never deals you the same case twice.
Detective Grade: the hard mode
Once Rookie cases feel comfortable, flip the Detective Grade switch above the puzzle and every question gets a tougher read of the same evidence:
- Half-remembered alibis. The suspects no longer hand you their word — only its shape: "5 letters, and the 3rd was an A." Four shapes fit an answer somewhere in the solved grid; the culprit's fits nothing, and we guarantee that at build time against every same-length answer. It turns the suspect board into a proper cross-examination.
- Scrambled scene. The tinted squares still hold every letter of the location — but in no particular order. Collect them, then unscramble. (Fans of our anagram crosswords will feel at home.)
- Coordinate codes. Instead of counted squares, the WHAT code reads like a constructor's notebook: 6A2 is the 2nd letter of the answer to 6-Across. Those are the little clue numbers printed in the grid — and since clue numbering runs past the grid size, seeing 8-Across on a 5×5 is perfectly normal.
- A fourth question: WHY. The motive arrives as a genuine Caesar cipher — shift each letter back through the alphabet by the key, and the key is hidden in plain sight: it's the number of Down clues in that puzzle. Real codebreaking, kid-sized. (For the full codeword experience, our cipher crosswords are next door.)
Your accusation then needs all four parts to hold up. The grade switch remembers your choice, and printed packs follow whichever grade is selected — a Detective Grade case on paper, cipher and all, is a genuinely meaty rainy-afternoon project.
Mystery packs for parties and classrooms
Download a puzzle pack under the puzzle prints complete case files: the crime, the suspect list, the shaded squares in gray, the number code with blanks to fill in, and an answer key (with each case's solution) as a separate final page. One case per page, built for pencils. They make a genuinely good party game — deal one to each guest, first CASE CLOSED wins — and teachers tell us mysteries are the easiest way ever invented to make a word puzzle feel like recess. Name & date lines and large print are in the options.
Common questions
Do I have to finish the whole crossword?
To make the accusation, yes — the accusation unlocks when the grid is complete. That's deliberate: the case is the reward for the solve, not a shortcut around it. You're absolutely allowed to suspect someone from the second clue onward, like any good detective.
What if I use Reveal?
Reveal fills the grid and, fair's fair, essentially hands you the case — so a revealed case doesn't count toward your cases-cracked tally. Check is fine and detective-approved; even Poirot asked around.
Can the same suspect be innocent twice?
Names rotate through a big cast, so you'll meet Ava, Kofi, Wren and friends across many cases — sometimes suspects, occasionally culprits. Each case's guilty party is determined by that grid's evidence, and no two cases you play are ever identical: your device remembers every puzzle you've seen here and the engine refuses to repeat one.
How do I make my accusation?
Do the detective work on the case board: mark exactly one suspect with the ✗, write the location into the WHERE boxes and the decoded item into the WHAT boxes, then press Make your accusation. All three parts have to be right — if the judge throws it out, at least one piece of your case file doesn't match the evidence, and we won't tell you which. That's what re-examining the grid is for.
Is this good for kids?
It's one of the best things here for kids. The crosswords use the same friendly everyday words as our minis, the crimes are pure pantomime, and the detective layer teaches a genuinely useful skill: checking claims against evidence. Start on Open-and-Shut, graduate to Cold Case.
What's the difference between Rookie and Detective Grade?
Same crossword, harder case file. Rookie names each alibi word, spells the location in reading order, and counts squares for the code. Detective Grade gives you word shapes instead of words, scrambles the location letters, switches the code to crossword coordinates, and adds a fourth ciphered question — the motive. Grid difficulty (the size picker) and case difficulty (the grade switch) are independent, so an Open-and-Shut grid with a Detective Grade case file is a perfectly good Tuesday.
Didn't you make a detective word search too?
Guilty. Our sister site runs a detective word search built on the same idea — one suspect's word missing from the grid, the leftovers spelling the evidence. Same cozy crime wave, different puzzle. Between the two sites, nowhere is safe (from puzzles).