Days after winning control of OASIS, the immersive virtual reality environment in which most of humanity chooses to live, Wade Watts discovers a world-changing technological advancement and draws the attention of a merciless new rival --

It's the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place. Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets. And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this...

Chief Harper comes to Cora Felton, asking her to solve a crossword puzzle found on the body of Old Man Overmeyer. Cora pokes into Overmeyer's death, hoping to prove he died of natural causes and soon learns the cranky hermit was the sole surviving member of a forty-year-old stock pooling agreement.

The reader is invited to identify items in the illustrations that begin with each letter of the alphabet.

"All the world is a puzzle, and Mike Brink, a celebrated and ingenious puzzle constructor, understands its patterns like no one else. Once a promising Midwestern football star, Brink was transformed by a traumatic brain injury that caused a rare medical condition: Acquired Savant Syndrome. The injury left him with a mental superpower: he can solve puzzles, calculate equations, and see patterns in ways ordinary people can't. But his condition has also...

When attorney Becky Baldwin hires Cora Felton to make a blackmail payment drop, it couldn't go worse: she stumbles over a corpse and a puzzle, and someone steals the money. Becky won't name her client, but the most likely suspect is Cora's least favorite ex-husband, Melvin, who claims he's being framed by a psychopath. Cora is in a no-win situation. Solving the murder will either put Melvin's neck in a noose, or incur the wrath of a cold-blooded killer....

"When an elderly boarder at a Bakerhaven bed-and-breakfast drops dead during afternoon tea, there's nothing particularly suspicious about it--except for the Sudoku in his jacket pocket. But when a second body turns up in the window seat and an autopsy shows both men were poisoned with elderberry wine, the Puzzle Lady suspects she's dealing with a cold-blooded killer who for some reason is copying the Cary Grant movie Arsenic and Old Lace, in which...

"Clayton Stumper might be in his twenties, but he dresses like your grandpa and fusses like your aunt. Abandoned at birth on the steps of the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers, he was raised by a group of eccentric enigmatologists and now finds himself among the last survivors of a fading institution. When the esteemed crossword compiler and main maternal presence in Clayton's life, Pippa Allsbrook, passes away, she bestows her final puzzle on him: a promise...