Enjoy the show. It's a killer.
Mystery of the Dinner Playhouse is a 2015 mystery book by Mike Befeler.
Gabe Tremont is a man in a rut. He's just retired from his job as a detective for the police department of Bearcrest, Colorado, and he's going out of his mind with boredom. In order to cheer him up, his wife Angie takes him to the Bearcrest Mystery Playhouse to see a murder mystery play. All is fine, if not a bit cheesy, when the butler Peter Ranchard collapses. Unfortunately, the butler isn't acting, and there's been a real murder. With the department's usual detectives out for their own reasons, Gabe is brought in to work the case. It's now up to Tremont to solve the mystery... that, and the mystery of what he's going to do when he actually retires.
Mystery of the Dinner Playhouse contains examples of the following tropes:
- Asshole Victim: Peter was a drug dealer, a blackmailer, and a womanizer.
- Bitter Almonds: Gabe recognizes the scent, and sure enough, the autopsy reveals the poison to be cyanide.
- The Butler Did It: Inverted both In-Universe for the play and the book itself, as the butler is the one who dies. Then it ends up getting played straight, as Peter actually killed himself.
- Frame-Up: Peter put out clues on each of the castmates and Helen as part of his ultimate performance.
- Mad Artist: Peter Ranchard, who killed himself and made it look like a murder as a sort of last performance.
- Retired Badass: Gabe was a stellar detective, but it's more like "Trying to be Retired" Badass.
- Suicide, Not Murder: Peter's killer was none other than himself.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: Peter is killed from his wine glass laced with cyanide.
