Most murder mysteries hand you a script. The one coming to Forest Avenue Library on the evening of October 20 does the opposite: it hands you a blank page and asks the room to fill it in.
The Dealt Hand, the Des Moines pop-up gaming outfit co-founded by Joseph and Mary Roth, will run what it calls its "large group Murder Mystery Experience" from 5 to 8 p.m. at 1326 Forest Ave. The library's own listing describes the arc: as a group, participants develop the cast, unveil their secrets, and then discover who among that cast is the murder victim. From there a detective enters the scene, asking questions and revealing clues until the murderer is found — and then the whole room builds up the how and the why of the crime.
That structure is what makes the night unusual. There is no pre-written script and no professional cast performing for a seated audience. The characters, their hidden motives, and the eventual solution are generated collectively, which means the mystery is only as good as the people in the room — and at a public library, that's the point. The event is listed under the library's Gaming program type for an adult age group, and admission is free.
The people behind it have been building this kind of participatory evening for years. The Dealt Hand started as a pop-up board game operation: the Roths, a Des Moines couple, launched it in 2019 after years of casual gaming and day trips to a board game cafe in Omaha called Spielbound, which convinced them the Des Moines market could support something similar. Their first pop-up came in April of that year, and frequent locations have included Firetrucker Brewery, Uptown Garage Brewing, and Art Terrarium. Within months they were running two or three events a week, and Joseph left his day job to work on The Dealt Hand full time. The company's library has grown past 200 games, spanning two-player titles, group games, long and medium sessions, and games for kids.
The philosophy behind the business has always leaned toward teaching and hosting rather than simply supplying a shelf of boxes. The Dealt Hand's site notes that games are great but can be expensive, hard to learn, and difficult to find people and places to play with — so its events bring a large selection of games the hosts are ready to teach, in locations where people can play comfortably. That same instinct shows up in the company's professional game mastering service, which advertises thousands of hours of experience across dozens of systems and states plainly that "all players at the table are co-authors." A room full of strangers inventing a murder together is a natural extension of that idea.
The Dealt Hand has also become a familiar presence in local libraries, running sessions such as Mah Jongg 101 for the Des Moines Public Library. The murder mystery format fits the same mold: an organized, hosted, low-barrier way into a social game.
Forest Avenue Library is a fitting host. The branch sits next to Evelyn K. Davis Park on Des Moines's north side and is known for an extensive foreign language collection — materials in Spanish, Arabic, Vietnamese, and Karen — along with computers for language learning. It also houses Rosie's Forest, an early literacy center with artwork by Sticks and a range of stations where young children learn through play. The library describes itself as being in a vibrant neighborhood and welcomes community groups and individuals to use its meeting spaces. On a Tuesday evening in October, one of those spaces will hold a cast of characters who don't exist yet.
For anyone who has wanted to try a murder mystery without memorizing lines, the appeal is obvious: you can walk in cold, contribute as much or as little as you like, and leave having helped invent a crime and solve it. The library asks participants to register with the correct age group for the adult program. The event runs three hours, from 5 to 8 p.m., and costs nothing.
Details are on the Des Moines Public Library's events calendar, and The Dealt Hand lists its other pop-ups, rentals, and game mastering services on its own site.