(From left) Kiernan McGowan, Raven Bonniwell, Kerry McGee and Jon Reynolds of the Literary Adventure Society
What would it be like to take on a case with Sherlock Holmes? The Literary Adventure Society has the answer. Following in the footsteps — and the deductions — of literary icons is the focus of the Richmond- and Washington, D.C.-based retailer’s immersive mystery boxes, game sets that sleuths of all ages can enjoy at home.
“It’s an opportunity to be together,” LAS co-founder Raven Bonniwell says, “and let it spin off and let [players] have those tangents that we go on and really connect.”
A cross between an escape room, an audio drama and a trivia night, each mail-order box is a self-contained whodunnit narrative developed, written and performed by the LAS team. The boxes include game resources — evidence packets, props and links to the audio story online — and mood-setting items such as custom candles, tea blends and curated cocktail recipes. The experience is designed for up to six participants, taking players through a plot and allowing them to follow the clues to solve a Victorian-era mystery.
“You’ve brewed your tea or made your cocktail. You’ve lit the candle. You’ve decided whether you’re in competition with each other or [if] you’re playing together. The audio starts to play,” Bonniwell explains. “The archivist, who is our host, introduces the story. And then you start listening to the audio as though you were a fly on the wall in Sherlock’s study or the Lynchcourt offices with Loveday [Brooke, the “lady detective” in author Catherine Louisa Pirkis’ 1890s work].”
And because the story is fully narrated, “If you are not a person that wants to immerse yourself and play detective, you don’t have to. You can just listen to it, and it will solve itself,” Bonniwell says.
“A Scandal in Bohemia,” a Sherlock Holmes short story by Arthur Conan Doyle, is the basis for one of four mystery boxes from the Literary Adventure Society.
The Literary Adventure Society is the brainchild of married couples Bonniwell and Kiernan McGowan (based in Richmond) and Kerry McGee and Jon Reynolds (based in D.C.). Bonniwell and McGee met through a theater production in 2008, when Bonniwell was an undergraduate at the University of Richmond and McGee was in graduate school at Virginia Commonwealth University. The friends moved to Washington, D.C., after graduating and met their respective husbands in the acting community, eventually forming We Happy Few, a theater company that stages plays in intimate settings.
We Happy Few produced the prototype for the mystery box model in 2020 and 2021, spurred by the isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. “We couldn’t perform anymore and needed to hard pivot. And we were really tired of Zoom theater,” Bonniwell says. “People like to come to our shows because of the experience, and so Kerry had this great idea to do some mysteries in that way.”
Capitalizing on the success of those early performances, the couples officially introduced the Literary Adventure Society in 2023. Its inaugural play-at-home mystery boxes, “Sherlock Holmes: A Scandal in Bohemia” and “Loveday Brooke: The Mystery of the Black Bag,” launched with the help of funds raised through a Kickstarter campaign in just 45 days.
A look inside “The Mystery of the Black Bag” mystery box
To craft such authentic experiences in-house, the LAS team works with trained sound designers, actors and musicians; re-creates historical documents; tests the scripts and placement of the clues; and develops the sensory elements. Bonniwell, McGee, McGowan and Reynolds are professional actors and sometimes voice characters in the audio plays. They decide collaboratively on the plotlines, which are original mysteries using existing characters.
“Kerry is the big, huge mystery buff of the four of us, and also Kiernan has read the entire Sherlock Holmes canon,” Bonniwell says, adding that Reynolds is the one who uncovered the lesser-known character of Loveday Brooke during his research. “Usually, it starts with a conversation about what our favorites are.”
LAS debuted its second round of mystery boxes with two new stories — one Holmes, one Brooke — in October after another successful Kickstarter campaign. The brand is also launching White Envelope Stories, shorter mysteries inspired by live LAS events McGee and Reynolds began hosting last year in D.C. These stories can be played on their own or as an expansion to a box.
The partners hope to keep up momentum with more narratives after their second series of boxes starts shipping to customers in December. “There are constantly ideas going. Agatha [Christie’s body of work] is something that we would love to create some things with,” Bonniwell says, adding, “We’ve been playing around with ideas for mysteries written by American authors at the turn of the century.”
Literary Adventure Society’s Premiere Mystery Boxes ($55) and White Envelope Stories ($40), as well as add-ons including extra tea blends and a downloadable Victorian Mystery Dinner Party guide, are available online at literaryadventuresociety.com. LAS also makes appearances at markets and pop-ups in the Richmond and Washington, D.C., areas; follow them on Instagram at @literaryadventuresociety for details on future events.
