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Soon after the guests of a local party arrived, the host was murdered.

"All of a sudden, there was a lot of commotion and then the host died," party guest Summer Laws said. "The person who did the murder didn't even know they did it."

Laws spent the rest of the night with 25 to 30 other guests trying to solve the crime at her first murder mystery party, hosted by Jennifer Lowe.

Each guest was given a description of who their character was, with suggested costume ideas. This story took place in the 1800s and the plot and events of the party unfolded as the night wore on.

"There was this lord, and he made people angry his whole life and was going overseas for a new start," Laws said. "So he invited all these people to his house for a farewell party. Most people had some sort of anger or angst against him for something he had done in the past."

Guests included the lord's wife, ex-wife, business partners, relatives, lovers and even the queen of England.

Paulie Anderson played the character of Arthur, the owner of a brothel, and he did the best he could to dress in character.

"I tried to be pimpish because I was a club owner and had a fancy little derby," he said. "I had no period clothes so I had to be the modern club owner - pseudo gangsta style - very unsuccessfully I might add."

The party intimidated Anderson at first because he had never attended one before, and was unsure of how the evening would play out.

"I didn't even know they existed until then," he said. "But once Jen started busting out all the information, it was almost like Dungeons & Dragons for adults."

Nick Guida, office manager for Marne Interactive Productions in Denver, said he was aware of murder mystery parties taking place up to 25 years ago.

"We've been doing them publicly for a little over 10 years and privately for a little over 15," he said. "Every major city has got at least one place that does them. You'll probably find they are all similar to a degree, but all very different in the way they're done."

Lowe took the initiative to buy a murder mystery party kit online for $50, but professionally-guided parties at Marne Interactive Productions start at $600 and go up substantially based on the size of the group, the number of actors sent to facilitate, travel expenses and whether the party is for a private or corporate event.

Guida has noticed a recent surge in murder mystery parties around the country.

"I would almost go so far to say they might be more popular now than they've ever been," Guida said. "Because there are more and more companies and places around the country doing them."

Guida attributes their popularity to the allure of audience participation.

"Interactive entertainment has become huge because people prefer to be in a situation where they can interject instead of sitting there," he said. "It's like reality TV. People are not content anymore to just sit and watch."

Marne Interactive Productions has 10 scripts they use on a regular basis that they write and direct themselves.

"They are as interactive as you want them to be," he said. "But the murderer is always one of the party guests."

Their actor-directed parties typically last 2.5 hours and 98 percent of the time, they occur over dinner.

"What we do is comedy and the murder has no blood or gunshots or anything gory," Guida said. "There is a tremendous amount of improvisation and a lot of it is stuff never said before and probably will never be said again."

The evening begins with cocktail hour where all the characters mingle and get to know each other. Then everyone sits down to dinner, after which the murder occurs. Shortly afterwards, the police arrive to start the investigation. And at the end, everybody breaks up into groups to determine who the murderer is.

"Voting is the highlight of the show," Guida said. "We have the captain of each team stand up and have their 15 minutes of fame to tell who they think did it."

Occasionally, the staff of Marne Interactive Productions runs into some technical difficulties. They sent one actor to a party that wouldn't end.

"He was complaining the show went on too long because the murder victim refused to die until he had his dessert," Guida said. "We don't normally kill anyone until everybody has eaten."

Some guests don't realize that the murder victim still can participate in the party after being 'killed.'

"The murder victim always comes back with the detective as their assistant," Guida said. "Otherwise they'd be sitting in the broom closet for the last hour and they don't want that."

Guida facilitated three murder mystery parties in a row in which the murderers thought it would be funny to not confess their crime.

"One of the tricky things about the dinner party one is that you are dealing with non-professionals and it can be a little dicey," Guida said.

When hosting your own murder mystery party - besides being mostly likely to be the murder victim - attendance is a key part of the event.

"I think it's a good twist on something to do for a theme party that really wasn't that much work," Laws said. "The only issue is making sure people confirm to come because some characters have to be there for the plot to work."