“A silly game:” Playing ‘Murder in the Dark’ in Ada Moncrieff’s Murder at Maybridge Castle (2023)

Many detective stories use physical gameplay elements as a setup for the narrated murder mystery. One famous example is Agatha Christie’s Cards on the Table which focuses heavily on the game Bridge. Other games equally lend themselves to mysteries: jigsaw puzzles, crosswords, chess, and even a variety of sports. One reader favourite is the ‘murder game,’ or ‘murder in the dark’: guests are invited to a dinner or a couple of days in a hotel during which a murder performance is acted out, giving them the chance to play at being investigators. It is an intellectual challenge for the guests with no other aim than having fun and harmless competition – until, of course, a real murder happens, and everybody is a suspect. One recent example of this setup is Ada Moncrieff’s latest Christmas mystery, Murder at Maybridge Castle. Charles, the new owner of the castle, has turned it into a hotel and markets it as haunted, appealing to spiritualists and sceptics alike. On a weekend in December, he invites a selection of guests to the Cumbrian countryside to celebrate the castle’s opening, with a programme consisting of a tarot card reading, a visit to the witch burial grounds near the castle, a séance – and a supposedly innocent game of murder in the dark which, however, soon turns serious when one of the guests meets an untimely end.

---

One of the most interesting aspects of this setup is the contrast between a game of murder with no stakes except for entertainment and the following real murder as a question of life or death. In Maybridge Castle, for example, Mrs Thewley and Daphne as her “deputy murderer” (84) are ironically the perpetrators in the initial murder game. Once the real murder happens, they switch sides and become the sole investigators since the police do not get involved until much later. The difference between the murder game and the murder investigation is emphasised yet again by the two ‘trial runs’ that occur before the actual murder which tease the possibility of fun becoming serious: first, the unfamiliar setting and uncharacteristic silence during the game alarm Daphne and lead her to assume that “[t]his is no game” (86) anymore; then Eleanor startles her with a scream when she accidentally sits in jelly (91). When the victim actually dies, it is made clear that the fun is over: “It was not the scream of a tipsy guest who had misunderstood the silly rules of this silly game. Or the scream of a clumsy guest who had fallen into a plate of jelly. Blood-curdling and terrifying, it was like a shard of ice hurled into the heart of the castle” (91). Despite this change in levity that the real murder causes, the image of the following investigation as a game is maintained: The guests are referred to as “players” (176) and Daphne invokes Sherlock Holmes when she observes that the “game truly was afoot” (124). The investigation is a game, too – a game with much higher stakes, but a game nonetheless.


Instead of the random assignment of the roles of victim and murderer(s) in the murder game, the death of the first guest also reframes the other characters in their role as suspects. Now, motive, opportunity, and temperament become relevant factors; and indeed, all of the players have secrets to hide. From the beginning, the reader is aware of the stark differences between the guests – their host, Charles, sends each of them a personalised invitation, adapted to its recipient in formality, motivation, and humour. The tensions rise when the guests gather in the hotel: between a strained newlywed couple, a grieving father and his vengeful son, and a school bully and her victim, amateur sleuth Daphne and her co-conspirator Mrs Thewley (not forgetting her cat, Duke) find an ample choice of motives to investigate.


Marketed as a Christmas mystery on the cover, the book does not fail to deliver on a wintery ambience: the days are short, the countryside is dark with the “sky a deep black that she had never seen in London” (200). With the added elements of séances, tarot card readings, and ghosts (even if the investigators meet them with scepticism), this book is a good choice for a December read. Readers are, as always, invited to play along at home and deduce who is guilty along with the fictional investigators – or, of course, to simply watch the game unfold from your armchair by the fireside.

---

Meike Heinrich obtained her bachelor’s degree in English and German philology and her master’s degree in English literature from Freie Universität Berlin, where she is now doing research as a PhD student of English Studies. Meike’s dissertation examines games and game-like structures in British detective fiction since 1900: games with and against the reader, ludic structures in narration, and mysteries that centre around physical gameplay like cards or chess.