by Vickie Fee
Tips for Hosting a Murder Mystery Dinner
While the murder mystery dinner in the book is a large-scale event, a smaller, more intimate gathering can be just as much fun. And themes can be selected to make the dinners perfect any time of year—not just at Halloween.
One of the pluses of a murder mystery dinner is that it ensures guests are engaged throughout the evening, even if they don’t know each other. This helps eliminate awkward silences and the all-too-common scenario in which some guests become wallflowers because they don’t dance, for example.
STEP 1: PLANNING THE “MURDER”
The simplest way to put together a murder mystery is to buy a kit. Most of these kits, which can be purchased online or in department stores, include the script, instructions for running the mystery, clues, costume ideas, and even invitations.
These may be used as is or, with a little effort, may be customized for specific groups.
For instance, a murder mystery in which the victim is the unpopular CEO of a company could be easily adapted for a party of coworkers to make their boss the “victim.” If the boss is a likable, good-natured sort he or she might even be included on the guest list and play the victim at the party!
Really ambitious hosts can even opt to write their own scripts.
STEP 2: SENDING OUT INVITATIONS
Send out invitations at least a month before the party to give guests time to look over their character descriptions and backstory. (Over the course of the dinner, characters will receive additional clues about their character and details about the murder to reveal). If it’s a costume party, guests will also need ample time to assemble their outfits. And be sure that guests RSVP so that you know all the roles for the mystery are covered.
STEP 3: PLANNING THE DINNER
Most murder mystery dinners are arranged in “scenes” that happen between courses. If hiring a caterer, the host will need to ensure that the courses are served in concert with the progress of the mystery. If hosts are making and serving the dinner themselves, even more careful planning is needed.
Keep it simple. Have appetizers ready before guests arrive. Let guests pour their own drinks. Serve the main course as a buffet, and if possible have desserts already arranged on a table. Having as much of the dinner ready ahead of time allows the hosts to enjoy the party.
If the group comprises close friends, hosts may even decide to make it potluck.
STEP 4: SETTING THE STAGE
For most people, a murder mystery dinner at home will likely mean limiting the guest list to between six and ten people. This is also the number of characters in most murder mystery kits.
Dinner guests must be at a table or tables in the same room or in adjoining rooms open to each other, so everyone can be in on the action. Use table decorations that fit the theme of the script, which can be anything from The Great Gatsby to a 1970s disco. The host may stage the crime scene in a different room and have the guests “commute” between dinner courses to view evidence at the appropriate point in the story. White masking tape can be used to create a chalk body outline, and shoes pressed into flour or baby powder can be pressed onto a dark rug to provide footprints.
STEP 5: LET THE PLAY BEGIN
After the guests have arrived and had a few minutes to greet each other, get things rolling. It’s the hosts’ job to prompt the next scene, keep the action moving, and keep the story on track.
But above all, relax and have fun. Unless you hire actors for the evening, some of the characters will inevitably forget or flub their lines. Make sure all the necessary clues to solve the murder are revealed, and laugh together at any missteps.
After the murderer is revealed, guests will want to look back over the way things unfolded and whom they suspected at various points of the story, so allow time for this, perhaps over coffee or cordials.
Tips for Hosting
a Riverboat
Gambler/Casino Party
At a casino party, with a riverboat gambler theme or not, there should be at least three games on offer, perhaps more, depending on the size of the guest list and the venue. Choices ensure there is something for everyone.
Invitations should indicate the style of the party, whether Casino Royale formal or Las Vegas strip casual, so guests can dress accordingly.
While we usually think of a casino party as adults only, it can also work for family gatherings. Bingo is a good multigenerational game—even youngsters can play or help an older relative keep track of the numbers.
Play card, roulette, and dice games with chips that can be cashed in for small prizes, such as books, novelties, or costume jewelry. The host may create a stockpile of prizes by hitting garage sales or scoring some great finds on eBay. Gift cards or a bottle of wine also make great prizes. And casino parties are a perfect fit for fund-raisers. Guests receive chips in exchange for donations to the chosen charity.
THE EQUIPMENT
Roulette wheels may be purchased online, starting at as little as $20 and going up to a few hundred dollars for more deluxe models. Poker chips and blackjack boards are also available, often in sets and very affordably priced.
Bingo sets can be purchased inexpensively, but can also be downloaded and printed out on home computers and printers.
Professional model game sets and games tables can also be rented from party supply stores. (This often adds delivery and retrieval costs.)
THE DETAILS
Set the stage, starting on the front porch. Fashion a gangplank, and hang netting and buoys along the porch railing. Stencil “Mississippi Queen” or “Gambling Hall” onto a square of plywood and brush the dried paint with steel wool to give it a weathered appearance.
Continue the theme inside, draping food tables with fishing nets and placing small nautical items here and there. Search and find vintage riverboat scenes online and available for free download. Enlarge and print images and hang them on the wall in frames you already own. Perhaps swap out some framed family photos for riverboat-themed images for the evening. Or haunt flea markets or rummage sales to find some inexpensive paintings with river or nautical scenes—or even dogs playing poker for a fun, kitschy touch.
WORD TO THE WISE
If you scatter playing cards as decorations on the food and beverage tables, be sure to use cards with different color backs for the card games, so sly cardsharps don’t win hands with something stashed up their sleeves!
Engagement Parties
WHO?
These days more couples are throwing their own engagement parties, traditionally hosted by the bride’s parents. But there’s no reason a couple can’t have it both ways. They may host their own engagement party for friends and have the parents host a gathering for family. It’s mainly a chance for some of the important people in the couple’s life to get acquainted.
WHEN?
Engagement parties are typically held six to eleven months before the wedding—relatively soon after the proposal, but before the crunch of wedding preparations.
INVITATIONS
In the book It’s Your Party, Die If You Want To, since Rachel wanted the riverboat gambler theme to be a surprise for her fiancé, the invitations didn’t give it away. However, if you’re not trying to keep the theme under wraps, you can have fun with the invitations. Maybe you could include something like “This pair is a winning hand,” along with photos of the happy couple in costume. Or “Rachel and Mark hit the jackpot and fell in love.”
BONUS TIP
For larger parties of any kind, hosts can actually save money by hiring an event planner. Paying for a few hours of a professional planner’s time upfront is often enough to keep an event on track and on budget, saving an inexperienced host or planner significant time and money—and making the party a success!
Catch up with Liv and Di from the beginning! Don’t miss
Death Crashes the Party
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Chapter 1
Monday was a scorching August day that had turned
into hell for me when the Farrell brothers crashed a party that already had disaster written all over it.
I was repeating the dreadful details for the umpteenth time to Sheriff Eulyse “Dave” Davidson.
At 10:00 a.m. I met yet again with the Erdmans to continue negotiations for their fortieth-anniversary party. Making all Mrs. Erdman’s peculiar dreams come true, while still pacifying her husband, was a complicated balancing act—like spinning plates on poles. This is a skill every good party planner must learn.
Mrs. Erdman, her red hair sticking out in barbed curls, sat on a chintz sofa in the couple’s expansive living room. We discussed every tedious detail of a moonshine- and magnolias-themed party. Mr. Erdman sat in a recliner, paying scant attention to anything that didn’t require personal effort on his part.
In a nutshell—the Erdmans being the nuts—she wanted an elegant party with frills, fancy foods, and elaborate decorations. Mr. Erdman wanted to wear comfortable clothes and drink lots of liquor. So he and his buddies would sample generous servings of different whiskeys, including moonshine from his cousin Vern’s still. The ladies would dress as Southern belles, sip mint juleps, and listen to a Dixieland band on the veranda. The men, at the insistence of Mr. Erdman, would be dressed as bootleggers. Picture O Brother, Where Art Thou? We finally ironed out a major wrinkle when Mr. Erdman acquiesced to one dance with his wife. Hopefully, the other husbands would follow suit.
Mrs. Erdman’s most recent vision for the party—and she’d had many—included ice sculptures. She wanted a giant forty perched atop a 1973 Plymouth Barracuda carved in ice, which would be displayed on the buffet table, with icy bare-butted cherubs to either side. The Barracuda was the car they took on their honeymoon. Not sure about the cherubs, but ours is not to reason why. After consulting with the ice sculptor, I now had to figure out how to store 250 pounds of ice—in August—so it wouldn’t melt before the party. Although the Erdmans had two refrigerators with freezers in their kitchen, they were nowhere near large enough to accommodate the sculptures.
Mrs. Erdman offered that they had a deep freezer in the garage, which stored her husband’s bounty of venison and catfish from his hunting and fishing exploits. She assured me that any game left in the freezer could be given away to friends and neighbors to make way for the sculptures. Mr. Erdman didn’t dispute her assertion. I followed them into the garage, with tape measure in hand, to make sure the freezer could contain the ice sculptures.
“And . . . well, you know what happened next.”
“Humor me,” Dave said, with absolutely no sympathy for the day I was having. So I went through it—again.
I opened the freezer to measure the interior. Unfortunately, what we beheld was the frosty remains of Darrell Farrell, staring up at us like a fresh-caught walleye.
Mrs. Erdman screamed and ran back into the house. Her rotund husband stood for a moment, stunned. I backed away from the freezer, looking at a still slack-jawed Walter Erdman, trying to think of something to say. Instead, I tripped, knocking over a big green garbage can, and found myself sprawled on top of Darrell’s very dead brother, Duane, who had toppled out with the trash. He was wearing what for the life of me looked like a Confederate uniform.
Walter Erdman screamed like a young girl and ran across the three-car garage and back into the house. I’d never seen anyone haul that much ass in one load. The Erdmans, who had the nerve of a bad tooth, had left me to deal with the problem at hand, despite the fact that it was not my house and it was definitely not my party. I dialed 911.
After phoning the police, I went into the house to let my clients know the sheriff was on his way. I found Mr. Erdman in his study, stretched out on a leather sofa, staring at the ceiling and clutching a bottle of Scotch. Sobs from the hallway indicated Mrs. Erdman had locked herself in the powder room.
“I went to the entry hall and sat on the stairs, waiting to open the door when you arrived.”
The only fortunate aspect of this tiresome inquisition was that Sheriff Dave was conducting it in the air-conditioned comfort of the Erdmans’ roomy kitchen, appointed with gleaming commercial-grade appliances and marble countertops. I helped myself to a Diet Coke from the under-counter fridge stocked with bottled water and soft drinks.
“Dave, you want something to drink?”
No, ma’am. I’m good.”
Presumably to emphasize that this was official business, Dave made a point of calling me “Mrs. McKay” and “ma’am,” instead of “Liv,” despite the fact that we’d long been on a first-name basis. Tall, lean, and not bad looking, our normally genial sheriff could, nonetheless, present an imposing demeanor when he had a mind to.
“I know you didn’t ask me, Sheriff Davidson,” I said, following his cue on formality, “but, despite the fact the bodies were found at their house, which would naturally make them prime suspects, I can honestly testify that the Erdmans were both completely shocked by the discovery.”
“Can’t rule anything or anyone out at this juncture, but I take your point,” he said.
After he finally stopped probing my brain for details, I had to ask, “Dave, do you have any idea why Duane was wearing a Confederate uniform?”
“He and his brother were both involved with one of those Civil War reenactment units,” he said. “As to why he was dressed out in uniform, I can’t say. They’ve got some big reenactment event coming up in a few weeks.” He went on. “Now, let me ask you a question, Ms. McKay. You seem to keep your ear to the ground. Do you have any idea who might have had a reason to kill the Farrell boys?”
“Seems obvious to me, Sheriff,” I said. “It must have been some damn Yankee.”
Dave did not seem at all amused.
