On the night of June 22 a man will die by the hand of one of your fellow diners … location — the hilltop house, motive — there are millions, all green with the face of past presidents. The name of the game is murder mystery complete with death, intrigue, suspicion and great food — without the spoiler of jail and police inquiry at the end — all of which the Hilltop House has to offer with their Murder of a Millionaire mystery dinner.

For $50 a person the Hilltop House will treat guests to a five-course meal held to their award-winning standards. “The meal always starts out with an appetizer, usually a soup or salad course, two entrees and a desert. The courses flow along as the meal progresses,” explained Beth Shearin-Smith, executive chef and Hilltop House owner. Rather than having diners sit and watch as actors portray the grisly death, the diners themselves are the characters who murder, suspect and are suspected, creating an experience as close to an actual mystery as most people wish to get.

The Hilltop House has hosted several other mystery dinners in the past few years, all of which were met with great success. The experience offered to diners is different from the traditional dinner and entertainment usually found in Fayetteville. Instead of sitting quietly watching actors solve a scripted mystery, the diners become part of the mystery and build a new experience for themselves. “It’s extremely interactive. The guests come dressed as the characters we email them. They all have little scripts they can read that give them little clues as to what they need to say to a particular other person, and added information that if they want to say they can, but they can keep it to themselves at the same time,” Shearin-Smith further elaborates. This allows guests to actually affect the way the mystery is solved. This is not a solitary experience however. Even if someone comes alone, people interact and talk as the characters they’ve been assigned. “Throughout the courses they’re getting up from their seats, moving about the room and mingling with the other guests,” Shearin-Smith said.

“One of the owners wanted to do something different,” Shearin-Smith explained regarding the inspiration for the mystery dinners. Expounding on the originality, Shearin-Smith says, “Coming to one (of the murder mystery dinners) is kind of like stepping out of the box and doing something different in a town where everybody goes out to eat and everybody goes and sees movies. It gives you something different to go out and experience.”

The Hilltop House is located at 1240 Fort Bragg Rd. The staff can be contacted for reservations or more information at 484-6699 or emailed at info@hilltophousenc.com. The dinner will be held on June 22 at 7 p.m., and costs $50 per person.

Photo: Murder and mayhem come to the Hilltop House — and dinner is included.