A Cosykiller case file spread out across a dark wooden desk — magazine article, hurricane lamp, Mayan glyphs

Designed for the serious sleuth From £45 · posted worldwide

Solve a cold case
at home.

Cosykiller is a hand packed case file which strives for authenticity and immersivity. Fiction set in the real world. Each case leads you through a snap shot in time and is packed with replica letters, photographs, telegrams and other evidence designed to satisfy the most detailed detectives.

  • 5.0 from hundreds of sleuths Verified reviews from solved cases

  • Free UK shipping over £75 Tracked international post worldwide

  • Hand-packed in Grimsby Dispatched within 3 working days

What's in the box

Real World Setting,
Fictional Stories.

Every case is different, and we want to avoid spoilers, but across all our Cosykiller Cases you'll find four ingredients woven into each plot making our stories unique and immersive.

  • Clues & Ciphers

    Letter substitutions, knock codes, Vigenère, one-time pads, invisible ink. Unlock each code to reveal more.

  • Puzzles

    Fold-out maps, layered photographs, cryptic exchanges, the occasional burnt page. Hand-assembled.

  • Mementoes

    Dried botanicals, trace evidence, period spices, pendants and coins. Little objects that change how a case reads.

  • Sketches & Photos

    Portraits, photographs, letters, military archives, newspaper clippings…everything comes together to provide immersion.

A Cosykiller case file — Fairhall & Brett letter, hurricane lamp, hieroglyph fragments, portrait cards

How it works

Three steps to solve your first case.

01

Pick your case

Browse the shelf. 1920s Egypt, 1930s India, 1950s Mexico, post-war Europe — pick the one that calls you.

02

We post the box

Hand-packed in Grimsby. The full case file — letters, photographs, maps, physical evidence — sealed, wrapped in brown paper, posted worldwide.

03

You work the case

Pour a drink. Clear a table. Read. Cross-reference. Decide who did it. Break the final seal when you're sure (or nearly sure).

An investigator pinning suspect portraits to an evidence board, the Cosykiller logo visible in the corner

From the author

Like an Agatha Christie novel
where you play Miss Marple.

Our single box case-file games run two to four hours. Our larger cases run six to eleven hours. We find a proper whodunit takes time to unravel and would rather you took your time to solve it. Consider this a choose your own adventure story where you follow your own trail of evidence and connect your own dots.

With our games you need to THINK. They are designed for serious sleuths. If you're ready for a "next level" challenge – then you've found it.

Every box is different, every story following a whole new case, but keep an eye out for Easter Eggs. Many of our cases interlink through time and you'll occasionally find a familiar character cropping up, or a news story that relates to something you've seen in an earlier case.

Read the papers, cross-reference the clues, solve ciphers and finally, when you're ready, name the killer.

Cosykiller is "offline" solving. There's no app to download. No website content to access. Everything you need is in the box, and so is the answer. You move at your own pace and finish when you're ready.

If you need further hints – these are available via our website or in our detectives forum where you can connect up with other serious sleuths.

The Site Q case file — a Mayan cipher paper, a White House postcard and portrait cards — laid out for a recipient

Buying for someone else?Posted direct

A case, hand-packed, addressed to them.

Enter their address at checkout and we'll post the box direct — the receipt only goes to your email. Add a handwritten gift note at order and we'll tuck it inside the opening envelope. Perfect for birthdays, Christmas, bookish hen-dos, retiring detectives.

  • Ship to a different address
  • Handwritten gift note
  • Receipt hidden from the recipient

What our customers say

“I received my first box in mid December and have only just sat down to start reading — but I can already get a sense of fantastic attention to detail, from the turmeric pages to the chai tea to the book cover and the faded bits. Can't wait to begin to make sense of it all.”

Jo Smedley An Inheritance of Murder

“Cosy Killer is by far the best murder-mystery box. If you're looking for an engaging experience filled with authentic characters, interwoven plot lines and puzzles organically entwined within the narrative — this is it. The team's skills encourage an inevitable emotional investment. There's a point where you decode a tricky artefact and with every letter my heart ached a little as I could predict what the next letter would be.”

Karen Parsons The full case experience

“I recently completed "An Inheritance of Murder" and I am officially in awe of the folks at Cosy Killer. The storyline was intriguing and the materials in each box were elaborate and contributed to the aura of mystery. The puzzles, clues and ciphers were varied and complex — and if you get stuck there's a community of nice folks to brainstorm with.”

Rebecca Pearson An Inheritance of Murder

Common questions

Before you ask

What is Cosykiller?

A hand-packed murder-mystery case file delivered to your door. Each box contains clues, keepsakes, ciphers and mementos — like an Agatha Christie novel where you play Miss Marple. No conclusions are drawn; the puzzling and detection is up to you.

I'm new to Cosykiller — where should I start?

Start with An Inheritance of Murder. It's our gentlest case, built for puzzle-minded beginners — Braille, letter-to-symbol substitutions and one-time cipher pads. The Curse of Humanrah is the next step up with knock codes, Vigenère and occasional folding. The Secret of Site Q sits in the middle — challenging but solvable. Shadows in the Gallery is our advanced case, layering playfair, knock code and Caesar ciphers across a post-war art theft — do it once you've worked one of the others.

How old do you need to be to play?

Cosykiller is written mainly for adults, but families can participate together. Every case is rated 14+ for themes of murder, and Shadows in the Gallery touches on wartime violence and post-war trauma, so we'd steer younger players towards An Inheritance of Murder first.

Can I buy a case as a gift?

Yes. At checkout you can enter a different shipping address; the receipt only goes to the billing email. If you'd like us to include a handwritten gift note, drop a line to <a href="mailto:hello@cosykiller.com">hello@cosykiller.com</a> with your order number and the message.

What's inside a Cosykiller box?

It varies by case, but every box contains a cover letter from Fairhall & Brett Inheritance Recovery — the fictional investigators who brief you on the case — followed by the documents like photographs, ciphers, maps, letters, military archives, telegrams, postcards, and other personal effects collected during the investigation. Some cases include dried botanicals, spices, theatre programmes and small physical objects. Each case is a complete story, with the final solution provided at the end. Nothing to download or sign into.

Every question answered