Be the Detective · File 001

The Wrong Kind of Dead

Caldwell Manor, Wiltshire · 1957

“A locked house. An open safe. The money trail is a lie.”

The scene, before you open it

Caldwell Manor keeps its heating off and its opinions to itself. On the night in question the doors were locked, the safe stood open, and every guest under its roof could tell you to the shilling what they believed the house owed them. Frost on the lawns. Sherry in the library. A ledger that refuses to add up the same way twice. Follow the money if you like; it has been waiting for you, and it lies.

That is all the file will tell you. The rest arrives across the five stages, one piece of evidence at a time, and neither of you will see the whole of it until the end.

Inside the file

How this one plays

The table

Two detectives

Just the pair of you on a couch, working the case together. No guests to invite, no costumes, nothing to host.

The evidence

Five stages

Scene photographs, the victim's file, the first reports, then forensics and statements. Each stage lands on both phones.

The board

It argues back

Log cause of death, prime suspect and motive on the shared screen. When the evidence stops supporting an answer, the board flags it amber.

The lock

You both have to agree

A stage only opens when the two of you commit to an answer, so neither of you can quietly skip ahead.

The night

Sixty to ninety minutes

One shared screen, two phones, one evening. Three from three at the end is a clean solve.

Original fiction

The Wrong Kind of Dead is invented from end to end, and it is built to mislead. There is no real case behind it, nothing to look up, and nothing you can spoil by reading around it beforehand.

The solution is fair. Every piece of evidence you need reaches your phones before you are asked to name anybody, and the misdirection is in how the pieces are arranged rather than in anything being withheld from you.

Want a real one? The eight Case Files reopen genuine historical cases, with real inquests and verdicts still argued over.

Open The Wrong Kind of Dead.

One case, two detectives, one night in. Your access code arrives by email the moment you pay.

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