Cyanide Mysteries

01/11/2024

The iconic movie The Silence of the Lambs features this trope, where FBI trainee, Clarice Starling, seeks Dr. Hannibal Lecter's help to catch another serial killer - Buffalo Bill.

It's also the premise of the Netflix series Mindhunter, where FBI agents study the minds of serial killers to understand them and help them catch more in the future.

31/10/2024

Happy Halloween! 🎃👻

(this photo is proof that I will buy the most random stuff at TK Maxx if it's dog-related!🦞)

P.S. Today is the final day of our Halloween spooky season sale!

30/10/2024

Meet the Vampire of Albert Dock. 🦇

Described by witnesses as having sharp teeth, clawed hands and eyes like balls of fire. He's been seen leaping across rooftops, stealing babies from prams and feasting upon animal carcasses. And he's already murdered three people.

So close your curtains at night, don't invite a stranger into the house, and be very wary when walking through the Liverpool Docks in the dark...

29/10/2024

Ten spooky season film recommendations, from fun slashers and satire flicks like Scream, Death Becomes Her and What We Do in the Shadows, to more gory and disturbing movies, such as Longlegs and Mother! that definitely aren't for the faint-hearted! 🎞️🎬

(Side note: Our spooky season sale is currently live on our website, Etsy and Tiktok shop!)

25/10/2024

What do you think - creepy or nothing to worry about?

24/10/2024

Our spooky season sale is now live! 🎃

Get 20% off ALL our products this spooky season. The sale runs all the way to October 31st on our website, Etsy store and TikTok shop.

Whether you want to test your detective skills this Halloween, or you’re getting ahead of the Christmas rush and ordering a gift for your loved one, this spooky season sale is the best time to do it! 🎁

(If you’re ordering from a mobile device, it might be best to checkout from our Etsy store or TikTok shop, just because the sale function on our website seems to be temperamental on mobile 🥴)

23/10/2024

In contrast to my scheduled autumnal posts, I've been in sunny Greece for the past week. ☀️

I'm back to cloudy and rainy Britain, and had to leave behind all the stray cats I made friends with along the way! 🐈

18/10/2024

One of my favourite films ever, Hot Fuzz, plays on this trope with many of the deaths. We think that Tim Messenger is brutally killed by a falling church spire because of the information he is about to impart to Sgt Angel, but it’s just because he was a sloppy journalist.

16/10/2024

Spooky season reading recommendations! 📚

It's the best time of year to curl up with a good book, a candle, snacks and a cosy blanket. 🍂

15/10/2024

I find history so fascinating, and so I loved every minute of researching when I was writing The Vampire of Albert Dock.

I knew for a long time that I wanted to create a murder mystery case file set in the Victorian period, but wanted to stray away from a story set in London. The Jack the Ripper murders were absolutely sensationalised in contemporary newspapers, as they still are today, which means that most media set in Victorian Britain just tends to focus on the country’s capital. Hence, The Vampire of Albert Dock, which was inspired by a local folklore - the Everton Vampire. It’s believed he was a farmer in 1680, who murdered his wife and drank her blood before killing himself. He was said to be buried at a crossroad to confuse his soul, apparently with a stake through his heart, faced down towards the earth, so that if he came back from the dead, he would start digging down towards hell rather than above ground.

My sister and her friends go to university in Liverpool and, when playtesting the game, they said it was so fun to recognise the Victorian versions of streets that they walk down all the time. Other interesting aspects of Victorian Liverpool were the docks - central to Britain’s role in world trade. In other parts of the city, there was a huge gap between the rich and the poor. The lower classes would have lived in terrible conditions, which contributed to sickness, disease and high mortality rates.

To find out more about Victorian medicine, I visited the Thackray Museum in Leeds, which has a replica Victorian street, with all the vile smells and gory sights included! During the time of writing, I also visited the Mental Health Museum at Fieldhead Hospital in Wakefield and I incorporated parts of what I learned into the story.

11/10/2024

If you wondered whether this law is ever put into practice, earlier this year, a fisherman was fined over £2,500 because he was caught with a salmon stuffed up the sleeve of his coat.

(The salmon was caught using illegal bait and it's also illegal to keep salmon caught in Welsh rivers - so many salmon laws! 🐟)

09/10/2024

Want to throw a cracking Halloween party?

Check out our blog post to take your Halloween party from the bare bones to a party to die for!

Read it here 👉 https://www.cyanidemysteries.com/post/how-to-throw-a-great-halloween-party

04/10/2024

The best way to rule out your suspects - check if any of them have an alibi. 🔍

02/10/2024

Want to throw a hauntingly good Halloween party?

Check out our blog for five tips to make your Halloween party a ghoulishly great night: https://www.cyanidemysteries.com/post/how-to-throw-a-great-halloween-party

01/10/2024

We have a giveaway on Instagram - head over there to see how to enter! 🔍

https://www.instagram.com/cyanidemysteries/

27/09/2024

The auction was for the toenail clippings along with a collection of other items belonging to the American gangster - but still! 🦶

25/09/2024

Double Trouble!

We've recently launched a two game bundle of The Curse of Little Witchell and The Vampire of Albert Dock, our two spookiest games, right in time for Halloween (well, maybe we're still a bit early for that 🎃).

Featuring eccentric characters, atmospheric and eerie settings, and villains in the most unlikely places... 🔍

24/09/2024

What makes the perfect autumn evening: friends, snacks, blankets, candles and solving a murder. 🔍

20/09/2024

There's been an influx in the past few years of mystery novels with elderly and/or eccentric main characters, who solve the case before the police, somehow without any of their experience or resources. 🚓

These fictional police forces are so incompetent they have to consult the likes of Sherlock Holmes to try and solve the crime. 🔍

18/09/2024

One of my most interesting modules to study at university was about the Romantic Gothic, and I found it so fun to litter The Vampire of Albert Dock with lots of literary references.

From Carmilla and Coleridge’s Geraldine to Polidori’s Lord Ruthven, based on the infamous Lord Byron (though not an actual vampire). Of course, no piece of vampire fiction is complete without reference to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and I particularly had fun with Renfield, the zoophagous maniac. 🦇🧛

17/09/2024

New bundle alert! 🔔

We've now uploaded a triple game bundle, which includes all three of our murder mystery case files and saves over £16 when compared to buying all the games separately.

The bundles are available on our website, Etsy and Tiktok Shop and include free UK delivery - what's not to love! 🚚

13/09/2024

Well, I suppose there's nothing more convincing than real skeletons! ☠️

11/09/2024

Spooky season is nearly upon us - the perfect time to play a chilling murder mystery case file 👻🔍

Three murders on one chilling night in 1892. Was this the work of a vampire? Only you can discover the truth... 🧛

10/09/2024

I was recently interviewed for The Escape Puzzler’s Meet the Maker series - check it out below!

Meet Your Maker is an interview series spotlighting creators. In this interview, we talk to Caitlin from Cyanide Mysteries. Click for more.

06/09/2024

When death is only the beginning… of the mystery. 🕵️‍♂️