The Twelve Suspects of Christmas
Hartley Grange, Yorkshire · 27 December 1955
“Snowed in since Boxing Day, and now one fewer for dinner.”
- Players
- 11 to 12 adults, plus the host
- At its best
- 11 to 12 guests
- Runs
- 2 to 3 hours with dinner
- Setting
- Hartley Grange, Yorkshire, 1955
- History
- Original fiction
- Suits
- Loud tables that like to accuse. Classic whodunnit
- Best for
- Christmas and Christmas in July
- Difficulty
- Hard (largest cast)
- Acting
- None needed. Short lines to read where the story needs them
- You need
- A TV or laptop, and a phone each
- Delivery
- Instant access. Printable pack included
- The host
- Plays the victim, then runs the inquiry
- Price
- A$39, one payment
- Content
- This story involves wartime looting, blackmail, and a single blow struck in panic. It does not depict atrocity or real named victims.
The strange flat days between Christmas and New Year, in a house nobody can leave because the drifts have closed the road. The party has been together long enough to have stopped being polite. When one of them is found dead, the guest list and the suspect list are the same list, and everybody knows it.
That is as much as the file will give you. The rest comes out on the night, one piece of evidence at a time, and the room will be well into the evening before the shape of it shows.
What you get
Fully scripted evening
Every act cued, every scene set, your lines where you need them. No prep, no printing, no experience required.
Clues arrive in stages
Evidence and private dossiers drop to your guests' phones as the night unfolds, one act at a time.
You play the victim
Set the table, welcome your guests, then haunt the evening while they work out who wanted you gone.
11 to 12 players
A core cast carries the case, with flexible roles as your table grows. Latecomers can join as observers.
App-hosted
The case runs from any screen in the room. Your TV is the stage, the phones are the wings.
Hartley Grange and its houseparty are invented. Original fiction in the snowbound country-house tradition.
Unlike our eight Case Files, which reopen real cases with real inquests, this file is invented from end to end. There is no historical verdict to look up and nothing to spoil by reading around it. The solution is fair, the evidence is all in the room, and your table settles it.
Want a real one? The eight Case Files are genuine historical cases, with real inquests and verdicts still argued over.
Take it to trial.
This case can end at the reveal, or it can go to trial: the person your table accused stands in the dock, your guests become the jury, and nobody learns who really did it until the verdict is in.
The trial for The Twelve Suspects of Christmas is coming soon. Trials are released case by case, starting with The Masque at Carfax Hall. When it arrives, the trial can also be played on its own, as a jury case.
Host The Twelve Suspects of Christmas.
Host it at your own table. Nothing to print, no script to learn, and you play the victim, so you finally get to attend your own party.