Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner? Death At The Dinner Party

Death At The Dinner Party: Murder Mysteries Set Over A Meal

Welcome to Only Murders In The Inbox. I’m so excited you’re here!

If you’re just joining us, here’s a quick intro: Every week, OMITI covers murder mysteries in literature and entertainment. We delve into the ways the Mystery genre is significant in pop culture. You’ll also find curated suggestions and lists here so if you’re looking for a certain type of murder mystery with a particular theme or setting, I’ve got you! If you’d like to support my writing, please sign up for a paid monthly subscription, become a patron sleuth or gift a subscription to a friend. A monthly paid membership gets you all 170 archived editions of Only Murders In The Inbox as well as exclusive editions, for less than the price of a latte. I appreciate your support! Click below to subscribe for free or upgrade:

If you don’t want the commitment of a monthly or yearly membership, you can Buy Me A Coffee. A great free way to support me is to forward this edition to a friend who loves mysteries, too.

Thanks for being here, your support is helping me through a difficult time in my life. I’m grateful for the gift of your time, please know I don’t take it for granted!

Agatha Christie’s Sparkling Cyanide, Image Courtesy Of Britbox

Death At The Dinner Party

Since Agatha Christie, dinner parties have become a tried and true background setting for crime fiction. A dinner party provides the ideal scenario for a dozen reasons. In such an intimate gathering, conversations over food are often riddled with clues. The dinner party is perfect for a very specific type of mystery — the closed circle of suspects mystery — because there’s a set number of suspects, all of which are guests at the table, or perhaps the staff serving the food. (Did the butler do it? Maybe!) An author may reveal the suspects and their relationship to each other in this one scene by exploring the shared history of old friends, or even with new acquaintances with previously unknown connections to each other. Then there’s the element of family and what that brings to a scene; an extended family get-together with the patriarch and matriarch’s children, often with spouses, is easily a recipe for disaster. There’s something both sadistic and enticing when it comes to a dinner party gone wrong. Tension over past events, relationships, money or politics can quickly escalate, then before you know it, there’s poison in the champagne, arsenic in the dessert, and someone’s calling an ambulance.

Here are a few of my favorite murder mysteries in entertainment, set during a dinner party. Let me know if I missed a favorite of yours in the comments below. There’s always room at the table for more. Bon appétit!

Poirot At Dinner, Image Courtesy Of The BBC

Agatha Christie and The Dinner Party

Agatha Christie holds the record for the most popular dinner party-murder mystery settings in crime fiction. There are so many! In 1932, her novel The Thirteen Problems takes place at a dinner party hosted by Colonel and Mrs. Bantry. In these Miss Marple mysteries, the Bantrys and their guests share stories and invite the others to guess the killer. Mrs. Bantry’s story recounts a murder that takes at a dinner party. In Christie’s well-known Sparkling Cyanide which originated as the short story Yellow Iris (Poirot Season 5, Episode 3) a widower, still clinging to the memory of his dead wife, recreates the dinner party where she was murdered, guests and all. When Hercule Poirot realizes the killer has returned to the scene, he tries to solve the crime before they kill again. There’s also 4:50 From Paddington, a Miss Marple mystery (The 1987 movie adaptation of this book stars Joan Hickson; the TV version stars Geraldine McEwan in Marple, Season 1, Episode 3, also known as “What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw.”) In the novel Three Act Tragedy from 1934 (Poirot Season 12, Episode 1), also known as Murder In Three Acts, Hercule Poirot sets about to solve an intricate crime that occurs during a meal. If you like this one, also be sure to read Christie’s Cards On The Table (Also Poirot Season 10, Episode 2). But my favorite Christie dinner party recommendation is Thirteen At Dinner.

Image Courtesy Of Dell Books

Thirteen At Dinner By Agatha Christie This 1933 Christie novel is now best known as Lord Edgware Dies. (You can watch David Suchet in the TV adaptation, Poirot Season 7, Episode 2.) Poirot overhears the American actress Jane Wilkinson announce she has plans to get rid of her estranged husband, Lord Edgware, because he refuses to grant her a divorce. Then he suddenly turns up dead. It should be cut and dry, right? She wanted him gone. But Jane has an airtight alibi when she attended a dinner party with twelve other people. How could Jane have possibly stabbed Lord Edgware to death in his library at the exact same time she was seen dining with her friends? And why would she want to murder him when he had finally granted her a divorce? This is an especially intriguing Poirot case that went on to influence many, many modern novelists and screenwriters who went on to write similar mysteries.

Image Courtesy Of Warner Bros.

Rope By Alfred Hitchcock (Eighty minutes long, available on Prime Video) In this classic Hitchcock film, the mystery isn’t who did it or how they did it, it’s will they get away with it? The film begins with two arrogant friends, Brandon and Philip, killing their former classmate David simply to see if they can get away with it. They hide David’s body in a large chest and proceed to throw a dinner party, using the chest (and the body concealed inside) as the buffet table for dinner. They’ve invited all of the people closest to their victim: his girlfriend, his best friend, his father, a family friend and their former teacher (played by Jimmy Stewart).

Rope is best known for being a seemingly uncut eighty minute film, when in fact it has ten cuts. However, this seamless flow of the movie lends itself to the growing tension during the party, giving the audience the illusion of a never-ending moment where they are anticipating the resolution.

Midsomer Murders, Image Courtesy Of The BBC

Midsomer Murders, Season 9, Episode 3 “Vixen’s Run” (1 hour, 35 minutes long, available for free on Roku TV) This is one of my favorite episodes of this long-running British murder mystery show, it’s right up there with “Happy Families.” This early episode from 2006 aired when DCI Barnaby was played by John Nettles, prior to Neil Dudgeon stepping into the role as his replacement DCI cousin. A wealthy aristocrat from old money hosts a dinner party to make an important announcement, but before he can explain, he keels over mid-toast. The slew of suspects is a mile long; three ex-wives, an eccentric brother, a bratty son and his older siblings, plus the groundskeeper’s family, are all under suspicion. Barnaby and Jones investigate and uncover one scandal after the next that leads to a great twist at the end.

Image Courtesy of Storm Publishing

Death At The Dinner Party By Ellie Alexander In this third installment of the Secret Bookcase Mystery series, Annie Murray throws a murder mystery–themed dinner party to help her friend Penny restore the historic Wentworth farmhouse. But, when during the dinner landowner Curtis Wright drops dead at the dining table, Penny becomes the prime suspect and Annie has to clear her friend’s name. As she delves into old family secrets, she discovers corruption and scandals, and quickly learns the killer will do anything to stop her from uncovering the truth.

Image Courtesy Of Sourcebooks Landmark

Seven Reasons To Murder Your Dinner Guests By K.J. Whittle This novel stands out because of its narration, much like the bestselling novel from Karen McManus, One Of Us Is Lying. In this book, each of the seven guests recount the events that occur during and after an anonymously hosted dinner party (not unlike Clue). Toward the end of the evening, cards mysteriously appear, one in front of each of the guests. On the card is a number, the age they are each predicted to die. They dismiss it as a prank, and the evening comes to a mysterious close. Fast forward two weeks, and one of them drops dead at the exact age that appeared on their card. Then, similarly to And Then There Were None, as the group grows smaller and smaller, dying off one by one, the remaining dinner guests become frantic to find their anonymous host of their dinner party and why they’re being targeted before they’re next.

Image Courtesy Of Penguin Books

The Late Mrs. Willoughby By Claudia Gray This historical romance-murder mystery hybrid features beloved characters from the world of Jane Austen. This sequel to The Murder of Mr. Wickham, finds Jonathan Darcy (the son of Elizabeth and Darcy from Pride & Prejudice) and his love interest/partner in crime Juliet Tilney reunited with a brand new case to solve. When Mr. Willoughby's new wife is poisoned at the dinner party thrown in her honor, both Jonathan and Juliet grow suspicious since it’s obvious Willoughby married his new bride for her money. As the couple investigate the dinner guests, danger looms, and they find themselves in very hot water.

This OMITI edition originally ran in March 2025 and has been updated.

Song Of The Day: “Nothing Matters” By The Last Dinner Party