Bepuzzled Murder Most Artful Jigsaw Murder Mystery with Story R. D. Zimmerman

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

Jigsaw puzzles tend to run along the same basic concept.  You have an image split up in to tiny pieces.  There are a lot of different images out there and the puzzles vary in size from 10 pieces up to the thousands.  You don’t see a lot of innovation.  Yes, they had 3-D puzzles, which I bought and tried.  But I’ve never seen a jigsaw puzzle and thought, “Wow!  Now that’s a lot more interesting than your average puzzle!”

Many years ago, someone got me the Murder Most Artful jigsaw puzzle.  You’re given a story and a puzzle.  First, you read the story about an art forger found dead near a painting.  When you’re done, you put the puzzle together to see the painting that he was working on.  You have to use the story and the painting to figure out who did it.  Once you’ve figured it out or given up, you can read the solution on the last page.  (The solution is printed backwards, so you’ll need a mirror.)

I did the puzzle many years ago.  Even then, it wasn’t overly difficult to figure out.  The puzzle is 500  pieces, which wasn’t that difficult for me to put together.  When I did put it together, I don’t remember it taking me that long to figure out who did it.  (In case you want to do the puzzle, I won’t ruin it for you.)

Since putting the puzzle together is the first step in figuring out who did it, you don’t get a preview image of the puzzle.  This wasn’t really an issue.  I’ve done puzzles without a preview.  I was able to finish the puzzle before figuring it out.  However, I have to admit that you don’t really need the entire puzzle to get it.  In fact, it’s entirely possible that you’ll figure it out before the puzzle is finished.

Since the puzzle was so easy for me, I never really checked to see if the puzzle was part of a series.  Now that I’m dong the review, I did look.  It was hard to find stuff because of the name, but I was able to find at least one other puzzle that had an Alfred Hitchcock theme.

I don’t know that I’d recommend it, but I don’t think I’d recommend against getting it.  For someone that’s used to 1000+ pieces, this will by no means be a challenge for you.   The only thing it will provide is a little distraction.  I don’t do jigsaw puzzles much any more, but I don’t know if I’d get the other puzzle if I was.  I just wish Epinions had an ‘indifferent’ button for the recommendation.

The Thirteenth Floor (1999)

Note:  This review is reposted from Epinions.

Some questions are hard to answer. What is reality? What is life? Why are we here? When a company creates a virtual reality, people have to start asking these questions. They create a rendition of the 1930s that’s a little off in terms of the colors, but otherwise seems real. There are seemingly real people who sleep in seemingly real beds and eat seemingly real food. A user can connect and take the identities of one of the characters.

Hannon Fuller, the man who created the system, figures out something incredibly disturbing. It’s so disturbing that he has to leave a note for Douglas Hall, one of his employees, in the system. The problem is that Hall is suspected of Fuller’s death. There’s a period of a couple of hours that he can’t remember, which puts doubt in his mind.

So, he goes into the system to find the note. Thing is that the guy he gave it to isn’t telling. He also finds out that Fuller had a daughter and that the daughter is here to shut down the project, as per Fuller’s wishes. Thing is that no one knew that Fuller had a daughter or that he wanted to shut down the project. After all the hard work that they put into it, why shut it down?

There are a lot of implications for a machine like that. There are some positives, like using it for training. Tweak the physics a little and you give police a chance to train in situations without risking death. You could also have virtual vacations if you perfected it. You would also have your own virtual playground, which could be a good or bad thing, depending on the user. (Imagine a virtual-reality Grand Theft Auto or interactive adult films.)

It does bring up the question of ‘being’ someone else. In the movie, the people generally assume the identities of people that look like them. However, you could put someone in the body of someone different. Someone could find out what it’s like to be bound to a wheelchair or what it’s like to be a minority. Those questions aren’t really dealt with in the movie. It's primarily a murder mystery. Did Hall really do it? If not, who did? You even get a twist midway through the movie.

Reality isn’t always what it seems. It’s also not all that it’s cracked up to be. The characters in the program go about their lives not knowing that they’re in a simulation. However, when one finds out, they begin to question what reality is. I have to give the movie credit for taking something that other books and movies have done and exploring it a little more. The movie gets four stars.

IMDb page