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Both the 1997 original and 2024 update of "African American Crossword Puzzles and Other Word Games + Sudoku" featured a logic problem with a fairly well-known Black cowboy of the American West. (No spoilers in case you haven't played that one yet.) The image above promotes "The Crimson Skull", billed as a "Baffling Western Mystery" touting an "All Colored Cast", starring Anita Bush ("The Little Mother of Colored Drama") and "the versatile" Lawrence Chenault.

In this 1922 silent movie the hero uses logic to thwart the rustlin' and robbin' bad guys and make the range-lands safe. AAP's logic problems won't challenge you in quite that way, but some of them can be tricky to see through to the other side. It's always a good idea to use the grid accompanying each puzzle to help eliminate possibilities and when, for instance, three out of four possibilities are exhausted, the fourth is likely correct.

It may also be helpful to see the full logic played out in a narrative form for one or two of the puzzles, to help get into a mindset of how to bring together all the clues and rule-outs. The links below will lead to detailed explanations of the puzzles. Saddle up, virtually, and hit the logic trail with African American Puzzles, where confronting a baffling mystery should most times lead to a happy ending.