Audience game of whodunnit

Martin Edwards’s Murder Mystery event
The Relais Henley
Saturday, October 4

MARTIN Edwards opened this intriguing event by promising the capacity audience an evening of murder and mystery. We began with the story that a local landowner, Sir Rupert, had been cruelly killed by a blow to his head, but that his killer was as yet unknown to the police, despite several suspects being identified.

One of us would have the opportunity to be crowned the best detective in Henley if we could accurately decipher the correct clues scattered among all the “red herrings” to be given to us. Four local actors then played their parts by each in turn telling their extraordinary tales of the events leading up to the murder, scattered with accusations of bad behaviour, falsehoods and deception by the others.

The audience were then asked to write down the name of the murderer, what was the motive and crucially how they had reached their conclusions. We were invited to choose between the mysterious Miss Marple (Kelly Saward), the incompetent secretary (Joey Burke), the frisky widow (Alexandra Hutchins) or the sleazy solicitor (Piers Johnston). While all the entries were being checked, Martin explained how at the age of eight, he had been introduced to the murder mystery genre when he saw the film Murder Most Foul, staring Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple, based on Agatha Christie’s famous novel. This significant event had sparked a lifelong passion for him to be a murder mystery author.

He has since published 24 books, and been crowned the winner of the Crime Writers’ Association’s Diamond Dagger — the highest honour in UK crime writing. His current book is called Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife.

Martin then gave the audience a brilliant summary of the golden age of murder mystery fiction which began in the Twenties led, of course, by Agatha Christie, who specialised in providing the reader with clues to solving the mystery, as well as numerous misdirections.

Martin explained that after the horrors of the First World War, followed immediately by devastating influenza infections, murder mystery stories catered for a demand for entertainment, accounting for its popularity which continues up to today.

The event ended with the revelation of the true murderer, which sadly cannot be retold. However, the audience were treated to a brilliant and highly entertaining practical demonstration of how to misdirect the reader, from an author who has been described by Richard Osman as “a true master of British crime writing”.

Terry Grourk