Mystery Word Ladders

It has been some time since I've made a non-coronavirus post. A fair number of earlier posts are related to my passion for mystery stories and mystery writing. Among other works, I have had three mystery stories appear in Mystery Weekly in the last few months, April, May and June. 

I also have a general passion for words. Words are chewy and when you masticate enough of them, you can build anything that can be imagined.

There is a type of word game called "word ladders." In word ladders, police are always one step away from being polite, and jail is followed by bail. The rules are you change words one letter at time to make the destination word. All transitions must also be words. I use the Official Scrabble Dictionary as judge as to what is a word and I never use proper name or words with hyphens or apostrophes. What constitutes a Scrabble word can be found at a number of sites online.

For example, I once became obsessed with changing the words that spell out numbers, one to another, for each instance when the word lengths are the same. One to Two in four steps (the fourth step being the destination word). 

ONE

ONO

OHO

THO

TWO

Ono, oho, and tho are in the Scrabble dictionary. Sometimes to crack these you need less common words.

The above example was simple. I had a hellacious time transforming seven into eight, working on and off on the problem for months. I would guess it took forty steps. I have the answer in an old writing journal. 

Here are some mystery word ladders from relatively simple to fiendishly hard. The fiendishly hard ones took me hours to construct. There may be quicker ways from one to another that I didn't find. I will publish hints tomorrow and the answers two days from now.

JURY to HUNG in 4 steps.

MYSTERY to WRITERS in 5 steps.

STAB to BACK in 7 steps.

From DANGER to SAFETY in 10 steps.

From CRIME to CUFFS in 10 steps.

POE to ECO in 14 steps. (I realize Poe and Eco are not Scrabble words, but the connecting words are)

And now for the fiendishly hard.

From TRIAL to GUILT in 18 steps.

From JEWEL to HEIST in 18 steps. (Jewel heists often take elaborate planning)

From HOLMES to MARPLE in 25 steps. (All the connecting words are Scrabble words)

Until tomorrow, good luck. 

Martin Hill Ortiz is a Professor of Pharmacology at Ponce Health Sciences University and has researched HIV for over thirty years.

https://mdhillortiz.com/