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Threats of violence, blackmail letters, secret passageways and shootings are among the many ingredients in A Party To Murder.

It adds up to mystery mayhem in this far-fetched comedy thriller by Marcia Kash and Douglas E Hughes.

Director Patric Kearns and his Talking Scarlet company take on a tough task in the first of their murder series.

Kearns' deft touch and perception enables the audience to enjoy a plot more devious and complex than most dreamed up by Agatha Christie.

Five people have been invited by writer Charles Prince to a remote island cottage on Halloween to play a murder mystery game. But it takes on a sinister dimension when guests begin to die.

Ben Roddy, as the self-assured Prince, and Oliver Mellor, as wheelchair-bound former footballer Willy, give fluent performances. Mellor delivers some macabre double-entendre witticisms in a suitably deadpan manner.

John Hester slightly over-plays bullying shipping tycoon Elwood, while Michelle Morris's American accent slips when showing the emotional side of his supermodel girlfriend McKenzie.

Natasha Gray and Polly Smith, as sisters and company owners Valerie and Henri, help bring out a parallel mystery that took place 25 years earlier in the same cottage.