The Cocktail Party Question

by Margaret Lucke

Here’s a scene you’ll probably recognize. You’re at a cocktail party or a reception or some other event that involves standing around with a glass in your hand and making small talk with strangers. You’re chatting with someone you’ve just now met, and one of you says, “So, what do you do?”

The other one replies, “I’m a (fill in the blank). How about you?” After a brief exchange, you each nod politely and start looking around for someone else to talk to.

Some years ago, mystery novelist Linda Grant told me how she gave this standard, stilted conversation a new twist. Instead of mumbling, “Oh, how interesting,” when the other person named a profession, she would follow up with this: “Tell me, in your line of work who might you want to murder, and why? And how would you go about doing it? What weapons would you have at hand?”

The first response would be shocked silence. She could see the thought flickering in her companion’s eyes: What kind of nutcase are you?So she would smile and add, “Hypothetically of course. I’m looking for ideas for my next book.”

Then would come the sly grin. “You know, there’s this guy in the sales department . . . “

Almost everyone could come up with a person who would make a good murder victim, so long as it was only on paper. A backstabbing colleague, an overbearing boss, a customer who refused to pay a legitimate bill, a coworker who made everyone’s life hell by shirking responsibility or constantly cracking his knuckles. The types of victims and the motives for killing them seemed fairly universal.

What varied were the weapons—and it turns out that most of us have some at our disposal while we’re on the job. The car mechanic can tamper with the victim’s brakes. The clerk in the clothing store can wrap the silk sash from a dress around a person’s neck. The chef can chop a death cap mushroom into an omelet. The carpenter and the gardener can choose from several tools with sharp blades. The writer can bash someone over the head with a computer printer—and don’t think we’re not sometimes tempted.

At the time when Linda told me about her Cocktail Party Question, my husband and I owned a small printing business. The next day when I went to work I spent a few minutes doing a quick inventory of available tools for murder. We had cans of chemicals that were toxic or flammable, equipment that could be rigged to malfunction in ways that would cause its operator great bodily harm, a large paper cutter appropriately known as the guillotine. I found myself fingering the edge of the X-Acto knife blade. Very sharp, but too small to do the job? Maybe if it were pushed at just the right angle into just the right soft and vulnerable place on the body . . .

When I’ve taught mystery writing classes I’ve used the Cocktail Party Question as an icebreaker on the first day, pairing up students and having them ask and answer it for each other. At first all they can talk about is how weird the teacher is, but then they get into it, stretching their imaginations and beginning to see new possibilities for plots and characters.

Now it’s your turn. Choose your weapon as I pose the question to you: In your line of work, who might you want to murder, and why? And what weapons does your profession provide that could help you accomplish that dire deed?

Who knows, you now just might have the seed of a good mystery novel.

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Speaking of mystery writing classes, I’m going to be teaching one of those this fall for UC Berkeley Extension. Ten Wednesday evenings from September 11 to November 13. It’s on Zoom so you can join from anywhere. If you’d like inspiration and information on crafting crime fiction, from cozies to thrillers, or feedback on your work in progress, this class could be for you. Check it out here: https://tinyurl.com/mysterywriting2024