COLOR
T H E   T O W N
DEADTM
5,591 HOMES. ONE DOOR.
the murder you solve by coloring in a town — by Dot Crossley

How it works

1. Read a clue. Every clue clears a set of homes beyond doubt — alibis, witnesses, geography, timelines, and the flour trail.
2. Color them in. Each clue type keeps one pencil color, first page to last. The town fills in like a quilt.
3. One door remains. When the last clue is spent, one home in all the town is untouched. Knock. And a hidden picture has been rising out of your pencils all along.

The cases

Eight towns, all open for investigation.

Color the Town Dead: Little Dimbleby cover

Little Dimbleby

Volume 1 · 5,591 homes · 40 plates · a village that keeps its secrets

Buy from Step Stool Books or buy on Amazon
Color the Town Dead: Saltmere cover

Saltmere

Volume 2 · 5,591 homes · 40 plates · a cozy seaside whodunit, one enormous deduction

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Color the Town Dead: Ashmore cover

Ashmore

Volume 3 · 5,591 homes · 40 plates · a dark academia whodunit among the cloisters

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Color the Town Dead: Gravensmoor cover

Gravensmoor

Volume 4 · 5,591 homes · 40 plates · a gothic whodunit out on the moors

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Color the Town Dead: Halloween in Hollowvale cover

Halloween in Hollowvale

A Halloween special · 5,591 homes · a spooky-season whodunit across lantern-lit streets

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Color the Town Dead: Christmas in Tinselwick cover

Christmas in Tinselwick

A Christmas special · 5,591 homes · silent night, one lying door

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Color the Town Dead: Advent in Calendale cover

Advent in Calendale

A murder mystery advent · 24 days of clues · one door on Christmas Eve

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Color the Town Dead: Edelmark cover

Edelmark

A winter special · 5,591 homes · a snowbound whodunit in a mountain village

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Free Christmas case: Mistlecombe

Color the Town Dead: Mistlecombe, the free Christmas Eve case

Snowed in on Christmas Eve, one poisoned cup of eggnog, and 271 doors to check before the bells ring in Christmas morning.

Mr. Ambrose Haddow, judge of the village gingerbread contest for thirty-one unforgiving years, has been found in the bakery’s cold room with an empty cup of eggnog and the blue ribbon still in his pocket. Someone in Mistlecombe did not care for his verdict. A free small case, printable and finished in one evening by the fire.

Join the case list and Mistlecombe is yours.

Try a free case: Willowmere

A complete little hunt — four plates, a town of 271 homes, every clue type, and a hidden picture of its own. Print it, grab five pencils, and see if it's your kind of evening.

Download the free case (PDF)

Want to hear when a new town opens its files? Join the case list — Mistlecombe comes with it.

The Detective's Companion

Own the book? Get the clue chapter as a phone-friendly PDF, so the book can stay open to the plates while you read and color. It contains clues only — no answers, no checksums.

The small case's solution reads: "the one uncolored door is No. 9 ___ street." What word fills the blank?