Winston Breen's Puzzle Party: Day 5.

For those of you who're on the Puzzle Party Train, you'll probably want to jump right in to today's puzzle -- so go!  Puzzle it out!  As usual, the answers to the puzzle should be sent to puzzleparty@gmail.com, one random solver will win an autographed copy of The Potato Chip Puzzles, and be sure to keep track of your daily answers, because they'll be needed to solve the final puzzle, which will make you eligible for the grand prize.  The last two stops on the tour are at Chicken Spaghetti tomorrow and Oz and Ends on Wednesday.  Good luck!

For those of you who haven't yet participated in the Puzzle Party, you still can!  While some of the prizes have already been awarded, the grand prize -- a copy of every single one of G.P. Putnam's Sons Spring 2009 children's and YA books, plus advance reading copies of numerous Fall 2009 books -- will be awarded at the end, so you've still got plenty of time to join up.

You're asking:  Who is this Winston Breen guy, anyway, and why does he merit such an awesome book tour?  Well, I'll tell you.  He's the star of two books:  The Puzzling World of Winston Breen and the upcoming (in just a couple of days) The Potato Chip Puzzles.  While I enjoyed his debut very much, I thought his most recent adventure blew the pants right off of it -- it's like an irresistible combination of The Westing Game and The Three Investigators.  If these books had been around when I was eleven years old, I'd have been one happy lady.

The first book had Winston on the trail of a secret treasure, but the second ups the ante and adds quite a bit of action to the storyline -- this time, he's competing in a puzzle contest in which the grand prize is $50,000.  While he and his friends are planning to give it their all AND have fun, their adult chaperone is a tad more competitive than they're comfortable with... AND there may be a cheater in their midst -- someone else who'll stop at nothing to win the big prize.

So, give today's puzzle a try.  If you'd like to get caught up (or just feel like some more good puzzling), visit A Patchwork of Books, Fuse #8, Shelf Elf and Books Together for the previous puzzles.  And be sure to visit the official Winston Breen Puzzle Party page for contest rules and more information.