This reminds me of the book Ella Minnow Pea.
“Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal phrase containing all the letters of the alphabet, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”
Now Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow citizens from the encroaching totalitarianism of the island’s Council, which has banned the use of certain letters of the alphabet as they fall from a memorial statue of Nevin Nollop. As the letters progressively drop from the statue they also disappear from the novel. The result is both a hilarious and moving story of one girl’s fight for freedom of expression, as well as a linguistic tour de force sure to delight word lovers everywhere.”
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters https://www.amazon.com/dp/0385722435/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fabc_LmAUFbSNM28CK
You may enjoy Ella Minnow Pea. It's weirdly similar and dissimilar at the same time.
It's not a murder mystery, but there's a "count down" aspect to the story that keeps you reading similar to that of And Then There Were None. The book is an easy to read short book made up of correspondence between characters who are trying to find a solution to what at first is a minor inconvenience then turns into something life changing.
It's not the type of book I would have chosen for myself off a shelf, but a friend recommended it, and I enjoyed it immensely.
https://www.amazon.com/Ella-Minnow-Pea-Novel-Letters/dp/0385722435
If you like that you'd really like this book.
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters https://www.amazon.com/dp/0385722435/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_fKr5xbKR8TD5R
Edit: Not sure why I've been down voted for this. Perhaps by offering the Amazon link? It's not an affiliate link or anything. I'm not getting anything from it. Just a good book along the same topic.
Because I love puzzles in RPGs...
A location that is linguistically decomposing, similar to the clever story Ella Minnow Pea. List the letters of the alphabet from least to most common. Every hour (or day, or week and it's been going on a while) the next letter in the list is removed from the world within that location -- no ability or spell that uses that letter can be used, or even remembered or talked about. Can the party escape before they run out of linguistic space?
there's a book with the main character named Ella Minnow Pea...
although her's is at least spelled out and not just LMNOP
https://www.amazon.com/Ella-Minnow-Pea-Novel-Letters/dp/0385722435
Hi, Micheal! What was it like working with Bing for HIDY?
Also, have you ever read this book?