Chess Mysteries

Has any one heard of The Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes? It's an interesting book.  It constains chess puzzles, but the point isn't to find the next moves, but the previous moves.  Here is an example from the cover of the older edition I found:

White to move.  What was Black's last move?  What was white's?

Can any one figure it out?

No solution!

funny that Ba7 is forced here.

Most king moves avoid stalemate too.

black k/ was on b7, white king on d7

lol i forgot about that.

Kd8 then Bd4 and white wins

I am not gathing points somthimes when I win. The game gats abbendent by the other player but I gat the restrictions for not obaing the rules.

Black king was on a7. White knight was on b6. Knight moved and exposed black king to white bishop who went up to capture it on a8.

The solution is this, which a few people have said:

Na8+ doesn't make sense.  The book mentions that there are chess puzzles that have a starting position that can't happen with legal moves.  I'm sure there are some that could only be arrived at with terrible play, as well.  The fact is that puzzles for chess are generally meant to improve a skill and the previous moves don't matter.

For white's move, I prefer Kd7 because of this crazy path black must take to even dream of reaching the h-pawn.  Obviously Kd8 still allows a forced promotion, but I think the path the black king can take with 1. Kd7 is more comical.

Alright, I'm going to post just one more.  This is a more difficult one from the book, but still in the easier section.  The question is which side is which?  I'm setting it up with the bottom as the 1st rank just for the chess.com diagram.  The bottom might be black's side, and it might be white's side.  Figuring it out is the point of the puzzle!

Have fun!

The pawn killed something of black's on h8!

Can you elaborate?  If you meant the light squared bishop was a pawn, then that'd be a8.  h8 is always a dark square.

Scrrrratch that, the bishop couldn't have ended up right behind a pawn on row 2 in h file. Bottom is blacks side, black moved some piece to a8 and white took it with a pawn and promoted to bishop.