Postmortem by Ken Ludwig

"Postmortem" is about William Gillette, the real-life theater actor, who made a career playing Sherlock Holmes in the early 20th century. Gillette built a medieval German castle in Connecticut and loved to invite his cast members for relaxing weekends in the country. However, on the weekend in question, Gillette has an ulterior motive: he believes one of his guests murdered his beloved fiance Maude exactly one year earlier, and he intends to find out just who it was. All of the characters are fellow actors in Gillette's melodramas and all react to the mysterious events in typical melodramatic fashion. There is a wonderfully eerie séance revealing one guest's closely-guarded secret and sending another into hysterics. There are shots in the dark, deathbed letters, guns, knives, ghostly apparitions and more. An attempt on Gillette's life finally leads to a surprising and comic ending.