It’s New Year’s Eve and a big party is planned in one of the penthouse suites by Douglas Fairbank and Mary Pickford. Dorothy Parker and Alexander Wollcott and Robert Benchley, two of Dorothy’s friends from the Algonquin Table group, are planning to attend.

Shortly before the party is to begin, a guest and his family is diagnosed with smallpox and the hotel is put on lockdown – Quarantine. No one in or out! But just before the doors are locked, the young Broadway star, Bibi Bibelot, makers her “grand entrance.” Needless to say, she steals the lime light.

Being that no one can leave, Fairbanks invites any and all to come up and enjoy the party. The penthouse is really jumping, and among the guests are Harpo Marx and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

To add to the celebration, Woolcott proposes a friendly game of Murder. A game where all players draw strips of paper and the one with the strip marked Murderer pretends to kill one of the other players. The victim has to stay where the murder happens while all the others figure out who-dunnit. What a surprise when one of the guests is found dead in a bathtub full of champagne! Looks like the game became real!

Parker, Benchley and Doyle wind up tracing down leads and find there is more than murder going on; theft, deception, nuns who are aren’t who they act they are, jealousy and more. It’s the Roaring 20s and this New Year’s is roaring! ( )

Dorothy Parker makes a great detective, in this case solving the murder of a Bibi Biolet who dies in a bathtub. Add Sir Author Conan Doyle to the story and you have a fun story set on New Year's Eve ( )

Best of the series so far, though I picked up one obvious clue early on that characters from that time period really would have understood and they actively talked about not knowing what it meant. ( )

A Friendly Game Of Murder is the third book in the An Algonquin Round Table Mystery series.

I'll admit that when I started the first book it took me a little while to appreciate all the one liners and double meanings that go on, for the most part, between Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley. This series will give you a chuckle or laugh on just about every page.

It's New Years Eve at the Algonquin Hotel and Alexander Woollcott is trying to get everyone interested in the game of Murder that they usually play. Before they can get started Dr. Hurst, a guest, announces that there is a case of smallpox at the Algonquin and the hotel is put under quarantine. Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford then invite all the guest to their penthouse to party hearty until the end of the quarantine. As the party is beginning to get underway, Bibi Bibelot, sheds her silver fox coat and doesn't have stitch on. She heads for the bathroom and order for champagne to be brought so she could take a bath and invited everyone to watch. The one thing she did have on was a silver locket, which Dorothy saw Dr. Hurst hand to Fairbanks when they first got to the penthouse. Then Dorothy hears a heated argument between Dr. Hurst and Bibi. Soon after Dorothy goes to check on Bibi and finds her dead in the bathtub with no real apparent injuries. And it is a locked room mystery, as the door is locked and a bath towel is up against the door on the inside. It is also a locked hotel mystery, too. And the "valuable" silver locket is missing also.

With the help of friends from "The Table", Woollcott thinks of him self as a detective, but this time they Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to help. Dorothy adoringly calls him Artie. Only Dorothy would do that.

If you are looking for a lot of quick one liners and a few come backs, this the series to check out. Never a dull moment when you are sitting around the Algonquin Round Table.

One example of the humor: Dorothy and Benchley are riding in the elevator with Sir Arthur and Benchley asks Dorothy what school she attended, she quips back--Elementary, my dear Benchley, Elementary.

Love the humor in this series and certainly looking forward to the next book. ( )

http://www.girllostinabook.com/2013/06/review-friendly-game-of-murder-by-jj.html ( )