Murder Mystery Party Case Files: Underwood Cellars #murdermysterygame

For all the super sleuths out there, the new Murder Mystery Party Case Files has arrived and there is a murder to be solved!  Perfect for individuals or as a great dinner party game, the Cary Underwood cold case has been reopened and it is down to the team to solve the murder. With over 50 pieces of evidence, and hints and conclusions online, the case will take a true detective’s mind.

I chose the Underwood Cellars mystery because it had a 4.5 star rating (on 1.042 reviews) and it came at a fair price too of only 14.95 £ (+4.18 £ for international shipping). The box that arrived is a sturdy one and I loved the design, it’s not just any box but it looks like an actual file folder.

 

What’s more, when I opened it I found over 50 pieces of evidence in two different folders:

There were polaroids of the suspects and several other normal photos, newspaper articles, witness statements, written letters, the detective’s notebook, even the timeline… I loved how much the dossier included and the variety of documents.

So I started to read everything. The goal was to list the suspects and add 1) motive, 2) means, and 3) opportunity. If I had all three then I would find the killer. And so I read about this Napa Valley wine maker, his brother, his business partner, his secretary, his wife, his foreman and one of his friends. One of them had taken his life and tried to cover it up.

To be honest, I had only read the Missing Person File and I already had my eyes set on one of the suspects. So when I read the Murder Investigation File I tried to keep this in mind and see if there were other things that fit and they did. Overall I didn’t find it so difficult to find the identity of the killer, and of the 6 possibilities 3 people fell off my list quite soon already. When you only hear once from them in a witness statement and the others don’t speak of them either, how are they supposed to be real suspects then?

I did find the motive was kept very simple and I did miss some extra drama and intrigue between the different characters, like mistresses who had affairs with different men and then tension and jealousy between them… I didn’t feel much ’emotion’ coming off any of the characters and it’s all quite straight-lined, there are no complications. I know, I read too many stories, right?

All in all I enjoyed this but I missed some extra game play, you’re done when you’ve read everything (I did take notes too so that I saw the important points in the statements) and you decide on a name. All you have to do then is check the solution on a private site (and there are a few clues too to get there if you need them), where they confirmed my suspicion, my suspect was in fact GUILTY. They also list all the clues (5 or 6) for you to have come to that conclusion.

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