Suspects & Sleuth's Murder Mystery Design Guide: A Guide to Creating, Writing, and Hosting your own Murder Mystery Dinner Party Games

This was a good book, but the table of contents doesn’t match the page numbers.Buy post it notes so you can mark the pages. You’ll need it as a reference when you’re writing your party and you’ll reference the book and the charts quite a bit.In the end it helped me get going and be organized. I didn’t use all of it entirely because I went another direction with the game. I didn’t want scripts, social deduction or any red herrings. I didn’t want a “liar” character to cause frustration. I wanted the evidence to point a certain direction. People make their own red herrings. I found my own in my head just writing it.Again, it’s helpful for the organization. Good tips for character sheets and helping create a time line and will get you creative andthinking about clues and how things tie together. It may even overwhelm you a bit.Something to keep in mind: I was planning a party with multiple ages. This is a book planning a murder mystery for adults using crime scene investigation, red herrings and social deduction.I ultimately went another direction, but I still recommend the book with some post it notes if you’re writing your first game. It is a huge help.

I am writing this from the perspective of someone who hasn't yet thrown a murder mystery party. I may have more feedback later, but my point of view comes from trying to create it, not how successful it was.I bought How to Create Your Own Murder Mystery Party and The Official Suspects & Sleuths Murder Mystery Design Guide to try to help create my first party. They compliment each other well. If you have never done this before, I recommend getting them both as they will fill in the blanks each book leaves.This book (The Official Suspects & Sleuths...) looks like a self-published book. The cover and back looks amateurish. The table of contents is smashed together. Page 3 has different fonts and different sized fonts that just throws me off completely. The top margin also looks smashed together. There is also a lot of space between the lines, which isn't standard. I don't know if anyone else is bothered by that. I wouldn't say it was a "big" deal, but it does affect the visual flow and professionalism of the presentation.The content is pretty stinking good though. This lays out everything step by step so that you can see why each decision was made along the way. This is very important because it can help you to rule in or rule out your own ideas without missing important elements. It is pack full of ideas so that you don't have to be too create your first few times out. Some of the topics covered are character development, motive, weapons, opportunity, clues, false clues, matching clues to suspects, how to end the game, and decorating.I don't want to do a heavily scripted mystery like this. I want my guests to be themselves. I can use things I already know about them to create the mystery, so this only got me halfway there. The other book took me the rest of the way. If you want a regimented type of event and have experience with participating in murder mysteries, this is probably all you need.Update: I ran the mystery last weekend. Between the two books, all the elements I needed were there to make this work. The pacing was off. That was partially due to my inexperience, but partially due to it being a mixed age crowd. The book wouldn't have helped with that. Experience will make it better next time. It was a hit.

I will say that I was skeptical yet interested at the same time. I host about 3 to 4 murder mystery parties a year. I've done them all, from boxed games to downloadable ones. Over the years, I've been wanting to write my own, but could never seem to get a good idea going. I've re-written many games I own, but could never do my own, original ideas. For me, making characters, finding motives and coming up the setting are the easy part. I've always ran into problems creating actual clues and evidence that would help to come to a logical conclusion. And I also want to say that I've bought other books like this before, only to find they didn't help me in the areas I needed. I'm happy to say this book was exactly what I was looking for. It's very easy to read and shows you how to create your own, original murder mystery party in a simple, step-by-step format. You actually watch as the authors create a party from start to finish. You then get explanations on how to change the style up to fit your needs. I actually was shocked to see how many of the plot ideas could be randomly selected by rolling dice. But it turns out, the random element helps to keep your ideas fresh. You might actually end up with clues and information you never would have thought possible, that actually help you to create your story. I finished the book in just a few days and was pleasantly surprised. I can't wait to start trying out the ideas from this book and creating my own party. Thank you for a wonderful and helpful book.

This is the book I've been waiting for all my life! I have loved the idea of a murder mystery party since I was a teenager, but I've never had the time, the encouragement, or the resources to pull one off. My partner and I host several parties a year. I wanted to add another to our list but didn't want it to be the run-of-the-mill holiday party or some such. Given that we're looking at a Through the Looking Glass themed party, I thought it would be elegant to add a twist of mystery to the atmosphere.Hence, murder always goes well with dinner.Suspects & Sleuth's Murder Mystery Design Guide is fabulous! I purchased two different books at the same time about how to craft a mystery party/dinner. The other was, well, less than stellar. This one rocks! It has everything you need to create and host a mystery party.This book steps you through every aspect of the design and hosting. It has samples and examples of parties and various methods of detailing your own theme into the evening.Oh yeah. While we made the decision to wait because of other circumstances, 2014 better watch out because there's murder in the air and it's smells delicious!

This surprisingly hefty book contains some good advice and bits of useful information, but also the scenario the authors use as an example, and form the core of this book, is terribly clichéd (Set in a manor house on a dark and stormy night etc) and in parts, unrealistic, with ludicrous qualities assigned to characters (for instance, they want us to believe that the maid is blessed with the ability to distinguish between different types on dust. Seriously?)However what really lets this book down is the atrocious typsetting and layout which makes it far from easy to read. I could forgive this given that a) I am a graphic designer by trade (and therefore picky), and b) the author is clearly not. But what I find absolutely unforgivable is the blatant disregard (or lack of knowledge) of basic grammar and punctuation. Given this guide is about WRITING, I cannot fathom how this came to be published when the author has no idea about when or how to use apostrophes. And don't even get me started on the inconsistencies of the typesetting. You may think this point irrelevant, but at best this is terribly annoying (given there are errors in almost every paragraph), but at worst downright ambiguous in meaning.But focussing on the actual information given, this is a handy tool of reference. It does contains some curiously annoying habits though. Under the heading "Locations" it happily reels off 3 dozen countries of the world the action could take place in (thanks, but I think most people could work that out for themselves), and yet for a genuinely useful tip to base character personalities on the traits of star signs remains absent - rather, we are invited to "look it up on the internet". A curious decision given that I would say this information printed in a list would be far more useful than a list of countries that any intelligent person can easily think of themselves.The description says nothing about it being an American publication - not really a problem, just expect lots of American-isms!

Unfortunately, the other review about the typesetting and misuse of apostrophes was not exaggerated. In fact, even with that review in mind I was stunned at how poorly the book has been formatted and edited.However, there are some good pointers in there for generating a murder mystery and I think that brings it up to three stars. I had already done some online research trying to come up with a very specific party idea, and this book has given me the inspiration I required.Don't expect the content to provide all the answers - it is more a way of pushing you to think about all the different aspects and some hints as to how you can knit the different ideas together. There is one worked example that is done in full detail.

I do love this treasure of a book. Its helped me write several murder mysteries for charity and will be with me as I write more. Wish I had had it ten years ago!

Is as described and just what a needed. Although the cover was a little basic, I would still recommend product to friends and family.

The content in this book is great. It guides you through the process of writing a murder mystery dinner party story. It does its job. That said, it requires serious editing. The Table of Contents does not match the actual pages of the book, for one, the formatting is off in many places, there are typos, and lastly, some work is needed on the style of writing. To me, it had a "it's good enough" vibe. The structure of the book could be reworked, as well. This book is not professionally done, but it works.