A Table Rock Lake Word Search Mystery: Book 1
Publication Date: September 2, 2026
They stopped speaking in 1980. Forty-eight word searches to the truth.
Earl Halstead and Joe Sowder came home from Vietnam like brothers and built most of this end of Table Rock Lake with one truck between them. In December of 1980 they divided the company down the middle and stopped speaking. Neither man ever said why. Their families have bid against each other ever since.
Now Marla Sowder, the engineer who runs the Sowder half, has been found dead in a Halstead driveway on a Friday night, and the county has already closed the case. Retired biology teacher Eleanor “Nell” Ashworth has been in Persimmon Bluff six weeks. Nobody here tells her anything.
But this time, the detective is you.
Read the chapters. Solve the puzzles. Track the clues. Each chapter hands you a scene and a word search, and the leftover letters spell out what the scene would not — a suspect cleared, a motive ruled out, a place crossed off. Across forty-eight puzzles you will gather everything you need to name the killer, the motive, the means, and the place, and you will get there the same way Nell does.
Six suspects. Two families with nothing to say. A verdict only you can reach.
A complete solve-along cozy mystery — no apps, no downloads. Just you, a pencil, and forty-eight word searches that build to a single solution. A perfect autumn read for cozy-mystery lovers and puzzlers alike.
Sharpen your pencil. Persimmon Bluff is waiting.
Although amateur sleuth Nell Ashworth moves to Table Rock Lake, she soon finds herself embroiled in what appears to be a closed murder case.
Author Jody Chaffin launches the first installment of a new standalone series with Murder in Persimmon Bluff. Just like the The Larkspur Hollow Garden Club Mysteries, readers are provided with one-page chapters followed by a word search.
Using the remaining letters, readers will find clues that will help solve the mystery. The immersive experience works especially well with the Kindle Scribe.
This case provides a unique twist because the authorities seem to be satisfied with a confession from a 78-year-old woman. Nell, however, is not.
Murder in Persimmon Bluff brings small-town drama to life with engaging characters caught up in a whodunit.
Jody Chaffin writes cozy mysteries for readers who like to do more than turn the page, pairing small-town whodunits with word-search puzzles you solve right alongside the characters. When he isn’t hiding a secret in a grid, he’s building software or out playing sports. He lives in Missouri.
His debut series, The Larkspur Hollow Garden Club Mysteries, follows a tight-knit Vermont garden club through small-town secrets with every solution hidden in the puzzle pages for readers to find.
