News and photos

Issue No 11:
15 February 2002

• We have finally finished the baseball mystery called "Death On The Mound". It is about two teams competing in 1944 - The Boston Odd Sox (the only remaining male team) and The Chicago Cheeky Chicks (the worst female team). Petticoat Peterson has been found dead. It is written in meet and mingle format for 12 to 50 guests. Click on the above title for more details.

• We have added two new drama kits called "Caught In A Spanish Web" for 12 and "The Greek Tragedy" for 8.
• We are busy writing a new Saint Patrick's Day mystery called "The Luck Of The Irish". Please let us know if you are interested in this new kit via email to info@merrimysteries.com and we will let you know when it is ready. We hope to have the clues ready by the end of February. However, we can send you the Invitations and Overview before then.

• Our photo competition winners
• Feedback on "The Love Letter"

Our photo competition winners

Thank you for all your wonderful entries. It was very hard to decide on the winners, but as there is limited space in this newsletter, I did have to decide. The three winners are:

• Amanda Milbourne from England for her photos from her "Murder Of The Great Chef" party
• David Martin from Australia for the photos from his work "Celebrity Celebrations " party
• Donna Pereira from the USA for the photos from her daughter's The Love Letter party.
  

We are commencing a new competition with a closing date of
1 April 2002 (see photos.htm for details).

Here is Amanda's winning photo of Cath Scarlet from "Murder Of The Great Chef":

Amanda sent in this feedback re "Murder of the Great Chef":

"Hi Stephanie,

We had 'rented' an old Manor House in the English countryside. It was the perfect place to play a murder mystery - just spooky enough so that you didn't want to stray too far from the group.

There were 13 family and friends staying. We decorated the dinning room with lots of candles, draping material and sprinkling lots of little gold stars around. I had made up little chefs hats for the place names and we had 1940's music playing. Everyone wanted to make something for the meal; for starters we had prawn cocktail, marinated mushrooms and melon balls with raspberry coulis. For the main course we had Lasagne, Shepherds Pie, Chicken Malaya and Chili and for desert there was Lime & Mascapone Torte, Fruit Salad, Chocolate Torte and Chocolate & Orange Trifle. We lit all the candles and had a roaring fire blazing away so the room looked very magical.

We had a Miss Marple type Detective who went around with her magnifying glass and fingerprint dust and brush, our Mrs Sybil Sibeal was like a Sergeant Major, ordering us to form an orderly queue and not to get out of line and David Wurst (one of the Chefs) was often found in the kitchen checking on all the food. But the star of our murder mystery weekend had to be my Aunt Sylvia who played Cath Scarlet the Bag Lady. She really did look grimy and just a little bit scary, though fortunately she declined wearing her 'Eau du Sewer'. Even so she really played her part to the fullest, she kept wiping her nose on her sleeve, slurping her wine and every so often you'd notice something missing and find she had put into her trolley full of her 'worldly possessions' and even the people sitting next to her started to feel itchy. She won the 'Golden Gnome Award'. About three of us guessed who the murderer was and we all had such a fantastic time we are already planning our next weekend away.

Thanks again

Amanda Milbourne
England"

Feedback on "The Love Letter"

"I recently ordered the 10 female only version of The Love Letter for my daughter's 12th birthday party. It turned out better than I had expected.

The girls (ages 11-13) enjoyed it immensely and really got into their roles. They were able to pick up on the idea faster than I thought they would and discussed who they thought the killer was in quite some detail before actually finding out.

We even had one of the participants ask us to do this again next year. I would highly recommend this for other teens and pre-teens (provided that they are fairly good readers).

Sincerely,

Karen McCullough"

David sent in this feedback re "Celebrity Celebrations":

"We had a really great time, no one talked 'shop', the food was great, the decor and surroundings were great - there was not one complaint. People liked the murder because it was different, and I noticed that they really became involved with the plot. For example, in the leadup to the function everyone was talking around the office about the murder - aeroplanes were far from the mind of everyone in the office. Everytime there was a break or a meeting, staff were discussing their outfits or the plot.

Thanks

David Martin
Special Purpose Aircraft Project Office

Donna sent in this feedback:

Hello,

We just had "The Love Letter" murder mystery party for my daughter's eighteenth birthday. Not one of the girls had attended a murder dinner party before. All of them came in costume and all of them had a blast. As you can see from the photo they all dressed their part...down to the gloves that were suggested.

Thanks again for making this party simple to download to all the great suggestions on how to make the party a success. It was!

Sincerely,
Donna C. Pereira