Daily Archives: 22. November 2014

I’ve apparently watched too many crime shows…

Yesterday we had our office Christmas party and instead of the usual feasting we attended a Crime Dinner – or Dinner Crime, as they called it – for the occasion.
It was a quite interesting experience that I’d like to talk a bit about.

The  premise for the event was as follows:

„You’ll be attending a fashion show where an award for street fashion will be given to an unknown designer. During the ceremony a murder will take place and the killer has to be found.“

This means that throughout the evening and between the meals, we would get to see a couple of actors perform a crime play. It also meant, that some of my colleagues had to pose as models or other characters that didn’t have text-roles…

The whole set-up already started on our arrival, when one of the actresses introduced the people entering the hall by stating their name and fashion label.
Luckily we arrived before she started doing this more excessively.
She did look me up and down, but she either couldn’t decide on a label or didn’t want to say anything due to the „Don’t you dare“-look I think I had on my face…

Before any courses were served we got to see the first scene that was pretty much the introduction of the main characters and the basic storyline. Shortly after it the speculations started on who would be the killer.

Yet, I turned the conversation to look at who will become victim instead and presented my theories to my colleagues that sat at my table.
They found it reasonable and we shelved the conversation until the next scene.

When it was over I stated:

„Now it’s clear that she is the victim. She just got poisoned with this-and-this. Though probably by accident.“

The amazed look on my colleagues faces was quite priceless, when they thought my words through and agreed with them. 😀

Needless to say in the next scene that character did indeed die.

Still, I re-phrased my reasoning in regards to the motive and the killer. What I had previously anticipated didn’t really make sense to me any more, so the one I assumed should have been killed instead, was now the one I believed was the murderer.

Again I presented them my theory and they partly agreed, seeing my points. But we also gave other theories a try and discussed them while we were at it.
Some solutions seemed too obvious to be true, so we dropped them quite instantly.

Still, when it was time for us to write our suggestions for murderer and motive on a piece of paper four people at our table wrote my conclusion down as well. The other’s weren’t that interested in correctly solving it and wrote silly solutions instead – though I know of one that still agreed with me.
Well, I even went as far as to add the murder weapon…

Then it was time for the big reveal.
The suspects were driven into the corner and questioned by a freelance, hobby detective and finally the murderer cracked.
And what can I say?
I was right.
I correctly guessed the murder weapon.
I correctly guessed the murderer.
My motive was just a tad bit off from the correct answer, but it still somehow fit, as it was still a part of the reasoning.
I even managed to pick up a thing that was only revealed in the conclusion, but I hadn’t mentioned that to anyone. When the murderer made a certain comment I had that thought in mind, but by the point we gave our solutions it wasn’t really the part I picked for the motive, as I wasn’t sure if it was just a random statement.

Now this makes me partly quite satisfied at solving the crime, but also a bit, well, frightened.
The conclusions I drew from what was presented were logical to me, yet the other’s didn’t think of them before I said them.
I know a bunch of other’s in the room guessed the murderer as well, but at least someone from the table next to us was impressed I got the murder weapon as well…

So is this because I’ve watched too many crime shows (Psych, Sherlock, Grimm, Elementary, etc.)?
Or is this simply because I’m an author and I have a mind for picking apart the hints presented in a story?
Or were the other’s just not interested enough to notice these things?
Did I just pay too much attention unlike the other’s around me?

Guess I’ll never know, but it was still an interesting and fun dinner.

What about you?
Have you ever solved a crime before it was officially solved/others could have a chance to do it?

PoiSonPaiNter

P.S. Apologies for keeping this quite vague, but if anyone wants to attend the same dinner I don’t want to take away the fun for them. 😉