Contest challenges AI to solve legendary literary puzzle Cain’s Jawbone

The fiendish mystery set by Observer crossword compiler Torquemada in the 1930s has only been cracked by four people to date. Can machines do better?

Crowdfunding publisher Unbound has partnered with an AI platform to challenge people to use artificial intelligence to solve Cain's Jawbone, a literary puzzle that has only ever been cracked by four people since it was published in the 1930s.

Cain's Jawbone is a novel by Edward Powys Mathers, who was then the Observer's cryptic crossword compiler. It's a murder mystery in which six people die, but it can only be solved if readers rearrange its 100 pages in the correct order. Unbound said the pages could be sorted to reveal the six victims and their respective murderers through logic and intelligent reading".