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A house party in the country. Upstairs bright young things wander across the lawns, sipping cocktails, dance the Charlston and tell tall stories. Downstairs, the butler keeps close watch on the bottles in the wine cellar and rules the pantry with an iron rod.

Suddenly there's a blood-curdiing scream. Murder!

It's going to take two hours for the man from the Yard to make it. That's enough time for any amateur sleuth to get to the root of the problem and you just volunteered. If you uncover the murderer before the cops arrive, you get enough praise to set you up as a new-age Holmes for the rest of your life. Fail and your name is Watson.

Murder is capable of generating up to three-and-a-half million different murders, each of which has its own entirely logical motive and can be solved on four difficuty levels - from Novice to Super Sleuth. All actions, from making notes to arresting the culprit, are icon-controlled and for the sake of atmosphere everything s viewed in period black and white.

Most whodunnits have one major problem. There's no point in playing through the story. twice because you already know the plot. Murder is different: three-and-a-half million cases and four difficulty levels throw up enough shady evidence to satisfy the keenest Sherlock Holmes and you never get the same plot twice. Patience is the key: it takes some time to get used to the controls (which are occasionally a touch awkward) and the logic of solving a case.

Unless you make a lucky break early on you are likely to spend the first few minutes getting absolutely nowhere, partly because although they always interact with each other most characters have a limited amount of information to give. A few more imaginative answers (and more atmospheric sounds) would have contributed a lot to the level of realism. Once you have got a lead, however, detective mania really sets in and you won't be satisfied till you crack the case. Agatha Christie fans and Columbo lovers, start counting your money:

Murder is one of the most engrossing whodunnits around. The ST's murders are configured in a different order but in the eyes of the law the innocent remain exactly the

Murder, mystery and suspense are doled out in exactly the same proportions for PC-owning investigators. There are the usual sonic limitations and graphics are in EGA and VGA.