Upcoming puzzle book
The Killer Isn't Beth: What to Know About Iris Starling's New Puzzle Book
Eleven victims, a woman accused of poisoning them and a dossier signed A. This time, identifying the dead is part of the puzzle.
Beth faces trial for eleven murders in Italy. The victims have been poisoned, but their identities are unknown. She says she was nowhere near the crime scenes and has evidence to support her account. The accusation has stuck anyway.
Then an anonymous dossier, signed only A, reaches the Italian police. Iris Starling's follow-up to The Killer Isn't Alice gives the reader its clues and a folder of names. Before the murders can be understood, the people who died have to be identified.
The new investigation
The victims' names come before the killer's
The Killer Isn't Beth combines a folder of names with connected elimination mysteries. The clues first lead toward the identities of eleven victims, then toward the person who killed them. Its announced publication date is March 2, 2027.
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How the puzzle works
Two questions that depend on each other
The announced structure moves through connected mysteries. Eliminating names supplies answers that carry the investigation forward, rather than simply revealing the next chapter of a detective's account.
1
Who were the victims?
Clues and a folder of names
The first task is to establish the identities of the eleven people found dead. The dossier's clues let the solver narrow more than 40,000 possibilities across the connected mysteries. That number describes the field to work through, not the number of victims.
Elimination makes the reader responsible for ruling possibilities out. A name has to fit the evidence; it is not enough to wait for a fictional detective to announce an answer.
2
Who killed them?
The investigation continues
The next stage asks who killed those people. That moves the case beyond deciding whether Beth's account can be believed: it needs an explanation for the murders themselves.
I haven't reviewed the finished puzzle. Its practical difficulty, full clue sequence and answer-checking arrangements are still open questions.
How Beth changes the question in Alice
The Killer Isn't Alice gives the solver eighteen clues and a dossier of 46,600 suspects. The central job is sustained elimination: remove the names that fail the conditions until one candidate remains. Its large list belongs to one search for a culprit.
What interests me about Beth is the change in what a name represents. Alice's remaining name points to a culprit. In Beth, finding a name begins to tell you who has been lost, while the question of responsibility remains unresolved.
Do you need to solve Alice first?
Penguin lists Beth as the second title in The Killer Isn't series and describes it as a follow-up. Those descriptions establish its place after Alice, but they do not state that completing Alice is a prerequisite.
There is no confirmed requirement to finish the earlier puzzle, and that is not the same as a promise of complete independence. The A on the dossier invites a question about the connection, but a letter alone does not establish who sent it.
When is The Killer Isn't Beth released?
The announced release date is March 2, 2027. Penguin and Little, Brown both list that date. As of October 22, 2026, the book is still upcoming.
More about Alice and Iris Starling
Alice's existing guide explains the work of managing a large suspect list. The Books Like page separates other interactive puzzle books from narrative mysteries, while Iris Starling's author page brings the site's coverage together.
Beth's case starts with an uncomfortable gap: eleven people have died, yet even their names are missing from the account. Finding those names gives the reader something concrete to investigate before the larger question of guilt can be answered.
Interactive puzzles and mysteries after Alice · Iris Starling's books and puzzle writing
Sources
Sources for this guide
Official announcements for the new case and The Killer Isn't series.