The Eleventh Hour (book)
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The Eleventh Hour: A Curious Mystery (1989) is an illustrated children's book by Graeme Base about an elephant who, on his eleventh birthday, wants to give his ten friends a feast. However, at the time they are to eat (11:00), they are startled to find that someone has already eaten all the food.
Base was inspired to write the book by reading Agatha Christie novels. He travelled to Kenya and Tanzania in 1987 observing animals in game parks and collecting ideas for the book. [1]
Written in rhyme, the book also includes some ciphers and codes for amateur cryptographers (for example, one page's border consists of morse code while another page set in the ballroom contains musical clues as to which guest is guilty). The biggest and most noticeable clue lies at the end of the book, written in a Caesar cipher:
MYXQBKDEVKDSYX! SD GKC SXNOON USVBYI DRO WYECO GRY CDYVO DRO POKCD. LED RO RKN ROVZ : YXO REXNBON KXN OVOFOX YP USVBYIC PEBBI BOVKDSFOC RSN DROWCOVFOC SX DRO RYECO KXN KBYEXN DRO QKBNOX KXN, KD OVOFOX WSXEDOC DY OVOFOX DROI KVV CMKWZOBON SXDY DRO LKXAEOD RKVV GSDR USVBYI KXN KDO EZ KW YP RYBKMO'C LOKEDSPEV PYYN. KXN XYG, TECD DY CRYG RYG MVOFOB IYE KBO, MKX IYE PSXN YXO REXNBON KXN OVOFOX WSMO RSNNOX SX DRO ZSMDEBOC? RKZZI REXDSXQ!
This page invites the reader to make some observations in the book, and deduce which animal stole the feast by looking through the book and gathering clues. Then, the reader is supposed to use the first letter of that animal's name to decode the text. If the animals name started with M, then M=A, N=B, O=C, P=D, etc. The solution to the cypher confirms the answer to the puzzle and offers an additional challenge to the reader.
The final portion of the book contains the answers to all of the clues in the book (including the cypher), and how to solve them. These last pages are sealed together, as the reader is encouraged to try and solve the puzzles themselves first.
Each of the preceding pages contains smaller clues to the solution, but we won't spoil it for you here.
