Sudoku hit the Western press in November 2004 and since then no new paper-and-pencil format has replicated its global reach. Manuel Garand, a Montreal puzzle creator whose riddles have even appeared in the ‘Financial Times’, tried it by combining the logic of mathematical grids with ‘Cluedo’-type murders. The result, published in Spain in October 2025 (and with a second installment on sale from July 1) by Temas de Hoy is ‘Murdoku’ and has become, according to the publisher itself, the best-selling non-fiction book in Spanish of the moment.
Where does it come from? Sudoku, despite its two decades of world domination Since ‘The Times’ began publishing it in 2004, it remains perched at the top of the puzzle throne, and has no rival in sight. The mathematical game has colonized newspapers, applications and pocket books with overwhelming efficiency. Its great attraction is its abstraction: without narrative, without characters, without settings. And there may be the key to the success of ‘Murdoku’: giving us everything that the original sudoku lacks.
What is ‘Murdoku’. This puzzle takes the mechanics of the Sudoku grid, and embraces the idea that there can only be one of each element in each row and column. But they are not numbers, they are suspicious. If we add scenarios and clues, each puzzle becomes a miniature investigation: when you discover which character was in the same room as the victim, that is the murderer. As Sergi Álvarez, editorial director of Temas de Hoy, told us, “you don’t just solve: you investigate. There is a more immersive and narrative dimension.” Finding an attractive intersection between puzzles and crime narrative is what has given ‘Murdoku’ its commercial appeal.
The figures. 300,000 copies sold, 17 editions, number one in non-fiction sales in Spanish. It was one of the best-selling books of Sant Jordi of 2026. In the US and the UK it is also sweeping, and Hachette has already published two volumes of the serieswith a third, ‘Around the World’, scheduled for fall. Regarding these figures, Álvarez tells us that “because of how it has grown, we believe that we are not facing a passing phenomenon, but rather a category with a long history within the editorial catalog.”
How it was born. Murdoku was created by Manuel GarandCanadian puzzle designer living in Montreal. The book was originally published in October 2025 and the spanish editionwas edited by Temas de Hoy that same month. The publisher had had another book from the same family in its catalog for months: ‘Murdle‘, a series of criminal-themed puzzles (with elements more typical of a conventional narrative deduction puzzle) that had exceeded three million copies sold in 30 countries.
‘Murdle’ combines mystery and deduction, but with a more textual mechanic, closer to the clue-to-clue puzzle. Álvarez tells us that “the markets are saturated with undifferentiated offers and grow thanks to original and innovative proposals like ‘Murdoku’, which has its own personality, provides a different mechanic, very easy to understand and very addictive.” The success of ‘Murdle’, yes, is what confirmed that the demand for this type of entertainment still had a long way to go.
The importance of TikTok. The 208 full-color pages, with detailed illustrations of each crime scene, suspects and surrounding objects, make the book more visually striking than traditional hobby notebooks. Of course, more than the arid grids full of numbers of Sudoku puzzles. Quite a temptation for booktubers: the hashtag #murdoku accumulates millions of viewswith individual videos that have exceeded 254,000 likes.
It all started when Spanish-speaking content creators began to solve the puzzles live, although Murdoku is not a novel or regular content for booktubers. Álvarez clarifies, beyond the specific push thanks to social networks: “We are talking about a conversation that grew week by week, the book was slowly cooking its success.” A surprise on many levels that hides something more than a commercial hook: puzzles of very notable solidity.
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