Murder-Mystery Dinner

My wife's cousin celebrated a significant birthday on Sunday and her close friends hosted a murder-mystery dinner. Naturally my wife and I were invited to a very fun evening as we tried to discover motive and the identity of the killer. Everyone came dressed up and enjoyed getting to know friends of the birthday lady.

Our invitation to the party came in a very ornate envelope via the US Postal Service. We get so little mail these days it was kind of fun to open a physical envelope filled with an elaborate invitation and two sealed sets of instructions. We were to read our own character details and be sure not to share them with anyone, including each other. I got to play the part of Stephen Goldring, a wealthy American traveling on the Orient Express from Paris to Istanbul. My wife played the part of Patty Hunt, a recently widowed woman with a shadowy past.

Upon receiving our invitation, we both had a number of questions and so I did an Internet search and found the game online. We got a few more details but didn't discover any secrets about our mystery. Should you be invited to the same event, I won't reveal any more specifics about our particular game. I will say that we had a wonderful time and really enjoyed ourselves.

We arrived at our host's house at the appointed time and and received more information about our characters as well as some instructions for the first part of the evening. We enjoyed the bar car (front porch of the house) while waiting for everyone to join. As none of the attendees drink alcohol, all of the drinks available were mocktails and added a bit of fun to the event. The host pressed her son and the sons of the birthday lady into service to take orders and mix up the various concoctions. One of the get-to-know-you activities included finding out everyone's drink of choice. My character enjoyed gin and tonic, which for me looked an awful lot like water, as that is really all I drink.

Next we moved into the dining car (dining room inside the house) where we enjoyed a spectacular meal. It amazed me that the host could accommodate all of the various dietary restrictions for around 20 guests. Nowadays it seems you can't get that many people in a room without 2 or 3 exceptions to whatever you prepared. The host did well and meal lived up to the haute cuisine one would expect on the Orient Express.

After dinner we moved to the sleeping car (family room) where we had a clue-finding activity after discovering one of the passengers had been murdered. The murdered passenger then switched roles to a doctor traveling in the coach car and provided his expert opinion to help with the clues. We also made sure to enjoy birthday cake and had a marvelous time solving the puzzle of the evening. Prizes were awarded to those that figured out the killer as well as a few other mini-games that made up the mystery. To me it seemed if everyone had a good time. My wife and I spent the ride home reminiscing about the evening and the fun we had.

Should you find yourself invited to a murder-mystery dinner, do not hesitate to go. If you have other plans that evening, cancel them so that you can attend. If you find yourself wanting to host such an event, I highly encourage you to spend the $50 to get a pre-packaged kit with all of the details necessary to pull off a spectacular evening. I know we had a lot of fun and they include a lot of tiny details that really matter when you try to solve a whodunit mystery.