Last year, an 88-year-old book took Tiktok by storm. Its newfound fame brought a lot of readers to its web with the promise of the hardest mystery to solve. I was one of them, and I have to say this book is not for readers. Cain’s Jawbone by Torquedama, originally published in 1934 as part of a collection of crossword and other word puzzles, came back to life to ruin brains all over the world.

If for some reason you haven’t heard about Cain’s Jawbone, the book tells a murder mystery in 100 pages, but unfortunately, the pages are out of order. The text is printed only on one side of the paper, and the objective is to find the correct order of the pages while discovering the six victims and their respective murderers. Sounds easy enough, right? Except this is no ordinary text. You can read all 100 pages and understand none.

A little bit of history

Back when it was first published, two people successfully solve the mystery. Then it went out of print, and the answer was never shared. Only when Laurence Sterne Trust got a hold of a copy of the original book, the curator Patrick Wildgust decided to try and solve it, becoming the third person to do so. With what they believe to be the right solution, Cain’s Jawbone was then reprinted in 2019 by Unbound. A cash prize was offered to whoever solved it, just like it was done in the 1930s. And so comedy writer John Finnemore became the fourth person to ever solve this mystery.

In 2021, a Tiktok user shared this book making it go viral. And a new cash prize was then offered. That competition ended in December of 2022, and apparently, there were winners. Although Unbound has not yet shared how many people solved it. An announcement sure will be done in the future as well as a solution book set to be published late 2024 to early 2025.

An unconventional review

The reason why I’m writing this review is not because I solved it. No. I haven’t got that far. Instead is because I don’t see Cain’s Jawbone being treated the way it should be. Despite referring to it as a book, Cain’s Jawbone isn’t a book. It comes between two covers, filled with white pages with text printed on them, and has a story, but it’s not a book. And I say this because as someone who both enjoys books and puzzles, what attracts me is my puzzle-solving side, not my reader side.

Someone who enjoys mystery and thriller books is not guaranteed they will like Cain’s Jawbone. There is a story in those disarranged pages, although it doesn’t make any sense on any single page. The text is filled with pleonasm and references to other literary works to code the text. So you read a page and don’t understand what it’s saying. And you read the next one, and the next one, and all of them. And they don’t seem to connect in any instance.

So as a book, as something to be read, understood and enjoyed, it doesn’t work, at least not until you have all the pieces together and solved it successfully. But as a puzzle, it’s incredibly fun. It’s just like a jigsaw puzzle, but instead of a picture is text. And instead of having an image as a reference, there are a bunch of other pieces of literature to go through and decode what has been written. To be honest, Cain’s Jawbone should be in the puzzle section instead of the fiction section in bookstores.

As an example, I spent an hour translating 4 lines of text to discover the narrator was referring to 1 pm. One hour of research doesn’t put me any closer to finding a victim or a killer. And yet, it was an amazing hour. I loved doing all the research and wasting all that time to reach a solution, even if it didn’t serve me any purpose (so far). And this is the sort of work anyone that picks up Cain’s Jawbone has to go through. And if this sort of investment appeals to you, then buy it because you are going to enjoy it. But if it doesn’t, if it seems too much work or if puzzles aren’t your thing, then stay away from it because it’s not going to be a fun ride.

I don’t work on Cain’s Jawbone actively, in fact, the last time I looked at it was at the end of last year. Although every time I go back to it, I get sucked in. Every page is a puzzle in itself and a promise of hours of research to decode it without any idea if I’m going in the right direction. Although I don’t mind if all the time I spend doesn’t mean anything to find the solution. I’m enjoying the ride, understanding how the text was written, which parts are citations, which ones are tangents and finding the same mentions on other pages. Even with the help of the internet, instant text search and public domain books, it’s a laborious task to “translate” Cain’s Jawbone. So it’s something that you have to do for the pleasure it gives, otherwise, it’s a pain in the A.

Someone that loves reading might not enjoy this book. But someone that loves puzzles, mystery-solving, treasure hunting, decoding or any other activity that makes the person engage in hours of thinking and rethinking, searching and researching, then they might enjoy Cain’s Jawbone. One thing is for sure, this mystery has hours upon hours of thinking. So I wouldn’t recommend this book to another reader, instead, I would recommend it to another puzzler, because I’m sure you have never solved anything quite like this before.