Welcome to the latest member of The Incomparable family of podcasts: Afoot, the mystery podcast! What makes a mystery a mystery? It’s a genre with a puzzle at the middle, but which takes many forms across all media. Many mystery elements have also percolated out into mainstream fiction and media.

This show will be “genre for people who aren’t genre snobs,” where we will talk books, comic books, television, movies, audio plays, theatre, and more, and stretch boundaries while staying true to the form. We may even play mystery games. We’ll have a number of book-club episodes, too, and announce choices ahead of time so listeners can weigh in or read along.

In this inaugural episode, your host and several panelists describe what sucked them into reading and watching mysteries, and their favorites, and we all discuss what salient factors turn a story into a mystery.

Follow us on Twitter at @afootcast!

Introducing Afoot!

Glenn Fleishman with Erika Ensign, David J. Loehr, Shannon Sudderth, Jean MacDonald and James Callan

Erika mentioned:

(Glenn notes Highlander is a mystery, and he never said the word Zardoz)

Shannon mentioned:

And The Name of the Rose!

James notes:

Future episode will discuss radio mystery plays.

David refers to:

Jean

Glenn

Shannon also cited Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers as a murder-free mystery.