A Mind to Murder

Those of you that know me well, will recall that i have a fondness for murder mysteries - in particular those of Agatha Christie and if you know me better still, that i have written a couple of mysteries myself (written for my enjoyment rather than any need to get them published). It was with some joy, then, that a few weeks ago, i received an invitation to a Murder Mystery dinner party on August 27th i.e. last night. For anyone who hasn't been to one, you are given a role to play for the evening - one of the suspects - and you have to assume that character for the night. Each character is given a booklet with some background information - and the game is played in three 'rounds' accompanying the various courses. Each course has some pre-round dialogue - and then there is certain information that you have to reveal over each round, usually in the form of accusation. The rounds are also times when you can quiz the other suspects. Basically, you can't lie BUT you can be evasive. At the end of rounds 1 and 2, there are summaries given (by CD) and then at the the end of round 3, accusations are made. Of course, at some point along the way (varying according to the game), the guilty party is informed that he 'did it'.

Ashley and Jim were the hosts and treated us all to some great Italian food (the game was entitled 'Pasta, Pistols and Passions' and had an italian theme) as well as some very entertaining acting (Ashley was Clair Voyant - and had a fantastically garish dress - we all insisted she wear it to present her lab meeting this week, Jim was the family priest - what more needs to be said?). My role was of a French Vineyard manager - Bo Jolais (I know!) which gave me the opportunity to do some gloriously stereotypical French-ness. It was a lot of fun indeed - everyone got into their roles brilliantly and it was a good laugh - with accusations flying across the table! When it came to the big reveal, none of us had guessed who the killer was - although i had something of an idea - ME!!! The plot was reasonably well constructed - between us we had guessed some of the 'twists' - but not so overly complicated as to make it unsolvable - hindsight helped us see the clues that were 'hidden in plain sight'. As for the murderer Bo Jalais? He's currently on the run in parts unknown - i doubt he'll be making any sudden reappearances.