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Categories: Books
Tags: batman, feelies, interactive fiction
Murder at Wayne Manor: An Interactive Batman Mystery by Duane Swierczynski
“You’re awfully quiet,” Gordon said.
“I’ve been told I brood.”
Bruce Wayne’s last memory of his dying parents is his father reaching out for his mother, but was there something more to that final gesture? When construction workers at Wayne Manor uncover the corpse of a long-missing woman, suspicion falls on Dr. Thomas Wayne, father of the Batman. It’s a case that hits Batman at home, but he’ll pursue it to the end — even if it means condemning his deceased father.
Written by crime writer Duane Swierczynski with full-page and inset illustrations by David Lapham, Batman: Murder at Wayne Manor is billed as an interactive mystery – but not in a Choose Your Own Adventure sense. Murder at Wayne Manor is an oversized novella, stuffed with feelies. Taking the approach that the reader is reading one of Batman’s case files, pockets in the book contain evidence including a coaster with an address scribbled on it, pages from The Gotham Globe, and a death certificate.
Sealed pages in the back explain the mystery, but the fun of the book is following Batman’s narrative while handling the physical evidence and attempting to solve the mystery on your own. The question is how well does it all work?
On its own, Murder at Wayne Manor is an interesting mystery which suffers a little from having too few suspects. Because of the nature of the case, Swierczynski is able to effectively use both Bruce Wayne and Batman and Batman’s narration provides an inner examination of the character you wouldn’t see in the panels of a comic book.
On to the feelies. The feelies are full-sized artifacts and you can suspend disbelief enough to pretend that they were actually collected in Gotham City. Save for one typo (which isn’t glaring), I had no complaints about their construction – however there were two pieces which, while interesting, weren’t compelling as evidence. Finally, it seems like you should be able to read all of The Gotham Globe, but I was unable to remove it from the book without damaging it.
Final thought: the combination of Swierczynski’s writing, Lapham’s illustrations, and the feelies justify the book’s purchase, but I can’t help but think that this really should be given or received as a gift.