Murder mystery dinner parties

Who-dun.it, anyway?

You send us your guest list. We write the mystery and cast every guest as a suspect.

Everyone gets a private dossier by email — their character, their secrets, what they want before the night is over. There is no script to read aloud and nothing to run. You arrive as a suspect too, and play your part over dinner.

Open your case
4–30 Guests, all suspects
$19–39 Once, for the whole party
2–3 hrs Over dinner, not instead
None Preparation by the host

Twenty seconds

What an evening looks like.

A dinner party where everyone at the table is hiding something, and one of them has done something far worse.

  1. Two weeks before You send a list of email addresses Forward us your guest list. That is the whole of your work as host.
  2. Once RSVPs close Dossiers arrive One page each, by email: who they are, what they are hiding, and what they know about the others.
  3. Eight in the evening Everyone arrives lying Drinks, dinner, and small talk that is not small at all. Nobody is playing themselves.* *Unless you opt for everyone to play themselves. They’ll still get secrets and a dark past.
  4. Around nine The murder surfaces A body, and a houseful of people who knew the victim. Suddenly every guest at the table has a motive to explain away.
  5. The last hour Accusations, then the reveal Everyone writes down who they blame and why, then reads it aloud. The room votes, the dossiers come out, and you learn who got away with what.

On the books

People book us for…

Birthdays The one where the birthday guest turns out to be the prime suspect.
Dinner parties Eight friends, one long table, several things left unsaid.
Work nights A team evening that is neither bowling nor an escape room.
Holidays New Year’s, Halloween, or the dead week when everyone is home.

From our case files

Every suspect arrives briefed.

A real page from a real case. Your guests each get one of their own, with their own name at the top. Read three of them.

Guests never see each other’s pages. That is rather the point.

Case file no. 001

Private & confidential

Vivienne Marlowe

Charming, deliberate, and rarely where she claims to have been.

Vivienne has brokered the sale of half the significant private collections in Europe. She travels constantly, speaks four languages, and has never once been caught in a lie — only in a contradiction.

Secrets

The provenance of one recent sale does not bear close scrutiny. You are hoping nobody looks.

What you know

You know that Constance Harlow has been quietly liquidating assets she doesn’t officially own. You also know that Miles Pemberton was present at a meeting last spring that he has since claimed never took place.

Goals

Conclude a private transaction before the evening ends. Leave before anyone compares notes.

Attire

All black. One striking piece of jewellery — possibly borrowed.

Three steps, one of them yours

How it works.

I

Send the guest list

Email addresses. Nothing else is required of you at this stage, or really at any stage.

II

We build the case

When your RSVP deadline passes we write the mystery around the people actually coming, and send each of them a personal dossier. You get host notes and a timeline.

III

Play your part

No script, no hosting experience, no game master. You arrive as a suspect like everyone else and the investigation takes care of itself.

The record shows

Not that kind of mystery.

A scripted kit has a predetermined solution and an ending that arrives whether your guests are ready or not. Here is what that looks like in practice.

Someone solves it in the first ten minutes. The script has nowhere left to go.

The host spends the evening managing the game instead of playing it.

Half the table hasn’t read their character card. The other half has memorised it.

The predetermined ending arrives. Nobody particularly cared.

Our cases are built differently. There is no predetermined solution — no script to abandon, no ending to arrive at prematurely. The mystery is written for your specific guests, the investigation is improvised, and the outcome emerges from the evening rather than being delivered with it.

Priced by headcount

Count your guests, pick your case.

One payment for the whole party. No subscription. Delivered before your evening begins.

 

The Dinner Party

4–8 guests

$19

An intimate evening of suspicion and subterfuge. Small enough that every accusation lands on someone you can see.

Open your case

Most popular

The Gathering

9–16 guests

$29

Enough suspects to keep everyone guessing, and enough side conversations that nobody hears all of them.

Open your case

 

The Grand Affair

17–30 guests

$39

A full investigation for a serious occasion — factions, alibis, and a room too large to watch all at once.

Open your case

Further enquiries

Questions, answered.

The complete case by email: a personalised dossier for every confirmed guest, a host briefing, and a suggested timeline for the evening. Print them or forward them — both work.

You provide the suspects.

We do the rest — the mystery, the casting, the dossiers, the timing. Tell us who is coming and pick a night.

Open your case