A little mystery.
A very good evening.

It is Friday fish-fry night at a Wisconsin supper club in 1962, and the regulars have gathered for their usual perch, relish trays, and familiar gossip. Then the owner collapses, turning a comfortable neighborhood ritual into an investigation. A threatened sale, a disputed debt, and a private promise have given several people reasons to want the owner out of the way. As the evening’s stories stop matching, the guests must sort old loyalties from fresh alibis before the killer slips out with the last call.

The church-basement bridge tournament is supposed to be an afternoon of friendly competition, coffee, and lemon bars. Instead, the dessert leaves someone poisoned, and the players discover that the real contest began long before the cards were dealt. A disputed score, a borrowed secret, and a rivalry hidden beneath polite smiles give every table a possible motive. The guests compare what they saw between hands, test each other’s careful accounts, and find out which player has been bluffing about more than a trump card.

At the town’s annual garden show, the prize dahlias are ready for judging and every exhibitor hopes to take home the blue ribbon. The judge is found dead in the greenhouse before the awards can be announced. A changed entry tag, a stolen cutting, and years of neighborhood competition point in several directions. The gardeners know their plants, their rivals, and the small details visitors overlook; now they must decide which clues grew naturally and which were planted to send them after the wrong suspect.

Chicago, 1927: behind the music and velvet curtains of a hidden speakeasy, the bookkeeper who kept the operation’s numbers is shot behind the bar. The guests arrive with passwords, private alliances, and carefully chosen stories about how they know the club. Before they can compare notes, word comes that a raid is closing in. With the books missing and trust suddenly scarce, everyone must decide which secrets to trade, which partners to protect, and whether the gunman’s motive lies in the business—or in something the ledger was never meant to record.

A group of college friends returns to the lake house for their thirtieth reunion, expecting to revisit old stories and settle into familiar roles. But the past has not stayed in the yearbook: a long-buried incident, a disputed memory, and a friendship that ended badly have followed them to the water. When one guest dies, the reunion turns into a reckoning. Everyone remembers 1994 differently, and every version leaves something out. To identify the killer, the group must work out which old grievance became a present-day motive.

An estate auction promises a rare painting, a room full of bidders, and the chance to turn a family inheritance into a fortune. Then the appraiser is found dead, and suspicion settles on the heirs, dealers, and nervous auctioneer gathered around the disputed work. Is the painting genuine, a clever forgery, or bait in a larger scheme? As ownership claims and private debts surface, the guests examine the sale’s paperwork, timelines, and shifting bids. The final question is not only who killed the appraiser, but what they believed the painting could prove.

During dress rehearsal at a community theater, the leading actor is found dead before opening night. The company is full of people who know how to perform, and every guest has a part both onstage and off. Rivalries over casting, a threatened production, and a prop that may have been altered make the rehearsal’s confusion hard to separate from deliberate misdirection. As the company reconstructs the final run-through, actors must decide when to stay in character and when to reveal what they saw. In a theater full of practiced lies, the truth may be the best performance of all.

In 1930s England, family and guests gather at Blackwood Manor for the reading of a will. A storm cuts the house off from the outside world, and before the inheritance can be settled, the host is found dead in a locked study. The household’s routines, the storm’s timeline, and the will itself offer competing explanations. Everyone has something to gain from the estate, but the locked room leaves an uncomfortable question: how did the killer reach the victim—and leave? The guests must reconstruct the evening before Blackwood’s secrets are buried with its owner.

A startup founder unveils the company’s long-awaited product at a launch party attended by investors, employees, rivals, and a few people who know what the pitch leaves out. Before the demonstration is complete, the founder is dead and the company’s future is suddenly up for grabs. Stock options, access logs, and confidential agreements become pieces in a high-stakes investigation. Each guest knows a different version of the company’s story, and some are bound by NDAs that protect more than trade secrets. To identify the killer, the group has to follow both the money and the data.

A blizzard strands a gathering of guests at a remote Northwoods lodge, cutting off the road and every easy way to call for help. When a guest is found dead, the survivors turn inward to examine the lodge’s routines, supplies, and tangled relationships. Then a second body appears midway through the night, proving that the first death was only the beginning. With everyone trapped and the story changing, the guests must revisit their assumptions, separate coincidence from design, and work out who is still in danger before the storm lets anyone leave.