It’s my better half’s birthday tomorrow, and as part of the festivities we’ve organised a murder mystery party with our friends. This is my first time having a go at one of these, and I’m really looking forward to it, especially as it’s based in an 80’s disco! I bought the pre-requisite album this lunchtime so there’s a good chance I’ll spend more time singing to the tracks than trying to solve any murder, but we’ll see.
I’m actually a big fan of murder mysteries of all descriptions – a couple of my favourite films are from the genre (especially Clue). I’m not sure what it is I like so much, maybe it’s the attempting to work it out, maybe it’s just the romantic atmosphere it conjures up in my head. Romantic’s probably the wrong word, but you get the idea.
In fact now I think about it, it doesn’t even have to be a murder, just something with clues which need figuring out. It gets me all ‘sleuthy’ even now just thinking about it. One of my favourite sub-genres is the Locked Room Mystery. You know the sort of thing; a man’s found dead in a vault which has no exits and was welded shut and all that was found was a banana and a note with ’53’ written on it, and you have to deduce how it was done. It gets my brain going. John Dickson Carr is the master of the locked room mystery, I highly recommend The Hollow Man, it’s incredibly well thought out and I defy anyone to work it out before the end!