Thank you so much for joining us on one of my Original Murder Weekends. I hope you will have an immensely enjoyable weekend on this, my 104th plot – one which I hope will entertain, confuse and amuse you.

This is the 29th year of my invention, the first interactive Murder Mystery Weekend in the world, and this winter saw a huge but rather gruesome, milestone in our history, our 10,000 murder! So, as I write my next plot, I’m trying to make the 104th plot our best ever, with masses of twists and turns, and as always on weekends, lots and lots of laughs!

Each Murder Weekend has a theme on which the whole plot is based. For each new plot we always try to create a completely different, fun and original theme. If you can get involved and play along with the cast of actors, the plot will become far more realistic. The reason for our fictitious theme is to explain why a group of total strangers would meet at a hotel but, once the murders start, it quickly fades into the background as you turn sleuth to deduce the reasons and motives for a series of untimely deaths.

Many of my regular customers know that I absolutely adore animals and I realised that it is 10 years since I wrote a plot involving animals and so I present to you C.A.A.T.S – The Campaign Against Animal Trauma and Suffering. This is a fictitious charity that like the International Fund for Animal Welfare uses their funds to help protect both domestic animals as well as endangered species. The members of CAATS that have been invited to the weekend have all excelled in fund-raising and there will be an award ceremony on Friday night to the member who has raised the most and in the most imaginative way. This is where you, the guests, come in. We would love it if you could pretend to be members of CAATS and invent wonderfully original ideas as to how you have raised vast amounts for the Charity. The Award will be given to the most original fund-raising idea, not necessarily the one that raised the most imaginary amount of money! You never know, some guests may go away and adopt your brilliant ideas for their own personal fund raising.

Throughout the weekend, there will be light-hearted themed games and quizzes – they are not complicated but just a light-hearted way to get you chatting to your fellow guests and to alleviate the stress on your brains from trying to make sense of the dastardly deeds. There will be a variety of games, some loosely based on animals, but love animals or hate them, you will be able to join in if you want to - there are prizes for the winners - but not for ‘googlers’!! Nothing is compulsory on Murder Weekends, so if you’d rather sit out a game, relax and read the papers or go to the Incident Room to study the evidence then that’s absolutely fine.

On Murder Weekends we always have a colour theme on the first night, and I thought for this particular plot we could do something a little different. The theme is going to be ‘spots and stripes’, which is appropriate as so many animals, particularly endangered ones do have striped or spotted fur. So please have a rootle through your wardrobe and see if you can find a pair of socks, a ribbon for your hair, jewellery, shirt, if you can’t find spots or stripes, you may find some animal print instead, which would do just as well.

On Saturday night we always have a themed party. I don’t call them fancy dress, as some people hate dressing up, but you can be very minimalist and still join in. With animal names used so often in phrases I thought we could hold an ‘Ark Party’ – with every type of animal invited. I thought it would be fun if you could come as a phrase, saying or perhaps a book, film or song title that contains an animals name – there are thousands listed on the internet and so many that could make very easy themed outfits. For example you could wear black, make two bin-liners into wings, wear sunglasses and come as ‘Blind as a BAT’; you could make a ‘Joker’ type smile with lipstick and come as ‘Grinning like a Cheshire CAT’; nothing could be simpler than taking a photo of your dog stretched out fast asleep, just attach it to whatever you’re wearing – ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’; a male guest with bottle could come in shorts with boxing gloves, with a stick on tattoo of a butterfly and a bee, dance nimbly on their feet and come as ‘Floats like a Butterfly, sting like a Bee’!!

Over the years we’ve found that the simplest ideas are often the best and many of our guests say that half the fun is creating their costume before the Weekend to get them in the mood (so please don’t hire something special, save your money and have some fun being creative). If you’re stuck for an idea then please get in touch with us at the Murder Weekend office and we’ll do our best to give you inspiration.

The main reason for the theme is so we can all role-play and get involved, which adds to the realism of the characters and consequently the plot - so please pretend you are guests of the “CAATS” weekend. Don’t mention the words ‘Murder Weekend’ or ‘murder’. We’ll only look at you as though you are completely daft and deny all knowledge of any such thing.

The Murder plot lasts for the entire weekend and the actors will be in character from the welcome reception on Friday night until the end of the summing up on Sunday. Over the course of the weekend there will be at least three murders in the complex plot and so that no-one misses anything they are usually when everyone is together but Saturday morning is free and you won’t miss anything by going out shopping or visiting the local places of interest.

We know you’ll have a lot of fun, no matter how you decide to play the game, but for those of you who are keen sleuths and want to solve the crime, I have enclosed some tips to help. It is also a good idea to bring along a small notepad and pen to jot down conversations you overhear or evidence you think is important.

If there’s anything that you’re unsure of, please do not hesitate to ring us at the Murder Weekend office.

We very much look forward to seeing you on Friday at the Welcome Reception at 8.00 pm, before dinner at 8.30 pm.

We hope you have a marvellous time and manage to crack the crime, which will be solved when the Detective makes an arrest at 12 noon on Sunday, when sadly the “CAATS” weekend officially ends.

* PLEASE NOTE: Could you let us know your full name and the names of any other guests in your party, as we need them for seating plans and to ensure that you are all sitting together.