All good things come to an end, and so does my podcast; started in the first UK lockdown and hard to justify now that lockdowns are well and truly over, In GAD We Trust’s 30th episode (number 29, but don’t forget that bonus run through the Jonathan Creek canon) is going out in a blaze of self-promotion.

See, I self-published my debut novel last month, and thought the perspective of a new author on how a decade’s worth of ideas gets concentrated into a narrative might be interesting — the advantage of being new to this game coming in having written only one book and so being, perhaps, clearer on the key points which informed the book itself.

So, starting in 2001 and bringing us all the way up to 2022, I give you The Story of The Red Death Murders, laying out the key developments and the ideas that lurked hidden in the back of my mind for 25 years (in one case…) before coming to light when needed. Apologies, my voice is a little scratchy and the edit’s a bit rougher because I’ve had a cold for the last week and kept hoping it would clear up, so this is a touch last-minute, but I hope there’s enough in here for it to be more than the blatant piece of advertising it so obviously is.

Onwards!

One final thanks to Jonny Berliner for my theme, to all the guests who gave of their time and expertise freely, and to you at home, on buses, or sneaking a quick cigarette at work for listening along. A podcast without an audience is an all-too-common thing these days, and it’s been a real joy to share these discussions with you and see the discussions which have resulted.

And so, listener, farewell to In GAD We Trust! I thank you for your past constancy, and can but hope that some return has been made in the shape of that distraction from the worries of life and stimulating change of thought which can only be found in the fairy kingdom of getting far too nerdy about detective stories.

There is a Golden Age of detective fiction going on at the very moment, but because most of what’s being written is aimed at 8-to-12 year-olds, it gets overlooked by, like, grown-ups. I’m trying to raise awareness of this with my frequent Minor Felonies posts, and it’s partly in pursuit of this aim that I’m delighted to welcome M.G. Leonard and Sam Sedgman — authors of the excellent Adventures on Trains series — to my nerdy detective fiction podcast, In GAD We Trust.

Ahead of the publication of fifth entry in the series Sabotage on the Solar Express (2022) and Sam’s non-fiction book about train journeys Epic Adventures (2022), both published on 17th February, Maya and Sam sat down to discuss writing murder for a potentially sensitive audience, how to clue a solution without making it too obscure, the importance of their collaboration with Elisa Paganelli, and the explosion of detective fiction available for younger readers in recent years.

There are also quite a few parallels between the classic-era Golden Age titles of a century ago and the work being done in the younger market, and it was lovely to get some perspective on this from two people actively involved in writing high-quality, engaging, and well-motivated mysteries. I know the step to books for 8 year-olds might seem an odd one to take for those of you raised on a diet of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, but I’m hoping the discussion — not least the point about the rigour of audience expectations, and the need for everything to hang together for a book to be read five or six times — will at least give you something to think about.

Anyway, onwards with the chat…

I’m very grateful to Maya and Sam for their time, to Jonny Berliner for my theme tune, and to you all at home for listening. In GAD We Trust is now a monthly undertaking, rather than a fortnightly one, and will definitely stop at some point, but while it’s fun I’m going to keep putting these out yet.

You can find all previous episodes on the blog by clicking here.

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The Adventures on Trains series by M.G. Leonard and Sam Sedgman

1. The Highland Falcon Thief (2020)
2. Kidnap on the California Comet (2020)
3. Murder on the Safari Star (2021)
4. Danger at Dead Man’s Pass (2021)
5. Sabotage on the Solar Express (2022)
6. The Arctic Railway Assassin (2022)

Last week, Nick Cardillo and I discussed the impossible crime on screen, at the end of which he casually asked about Jonathan Creek like I’d be able to condense my thoughts into a pithy bon mot and not obsess about what I’d missed out for the next 30 or 40 years. Instead, we’re back to discuss the series as a whole today.

I’ve written about Creek before — picking my five favourite episodes, bemoaning its fall from grace — but this time we’re going through the entire series from 10th May 1997 (‘The Wrestler’s Tomb’) to 28th December 2016 (‘Daemons’ Roost’), looking at each and every episode to varying degrees of detail and enthusiasm.

I wouldn’t expect this to be of interest to someone who hasn’t watched Jonathan Creek, but presume all spoilers all the time (I may have forgotten to mention this in the recording — it was a long session, and the edit took frickin’ aaaaages) and seek solace in knowing that a chronological approach is taken and so you might be able to skip over any you haven’t seen. Sure, I could provide time codes, but I’m not gonna.

You can listen to the podcast on iTunes here, on Spotify here, or by using the player below. 

Thanks of course go to Nick for the casual suggestion and his willingness to submit to such a searching examination of one of the few genuine joys of my younger life that still holds sway over me as an adult, to Jonny Berliner for the music, to you for being an audience that’ll appreciate this, and to David Renwick for creating something that, while not without significant flaws, undoubtedly altered the course of my interests forever.

Theoretically, episode 28 of In GAD We Trust should follow next week, but I don’t think it will — I’m very busy, the guest is very busy, and I’m not sure that we’re going to be able to co-ordinate in time. I imagine the next podcast on here will be the Spoiler Warning chat about After the Funeral (1953) by Agatha Christie in three weeks, but maybe we’ll surprise you.

There’s so little genuine surprise these days, y’know? Or, at least, not the good kind of surprise. A bit of irresolution is exciting. I hope.

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All episodes of In GAD We Trust can be found on the blog by clicking here.

Does In GAD We Trust have a hype train? If so, stoke the conductor, point the rails, wake up the boiler, and do other train things, because episode 27 is here and Nick Cardillo wants to talk about the impossible crime on screen.

Written down, the impossible crime — sometimes called the “miracle problem” when no crime had been committed but something at odds with the laws of nature and probability has occurred — has a rich a varied history of brilliant and complex examples that are thrilling to experience. On the screen…less so. So Nick wanted to examine this, and we did.

We also managed to veer around a few associated topics (the use of humour in the Henry Merrivale novels of John Dickson Carr, for one), and kept free of spoilers for everything discussed, so hopefully there’s something here for you if the seeing impossible done doesn’t fire your interest, you massive weirdo (I jest, I jest; I’m sure someone somewhere probably thinks you’re grand).

You can listen to the podcast on iTunes here, on Spotify here, or by using the player below. 

Thanks go to Nick for his time — you can find his Kickstarter for The Improbable Casebook of Sherlock Holmes here — to Jonny Berliner for the music, and to you for your continued (or new — welcome!) interest in these episodes.

More podcast soon — stay safe.

I’m as surprised as you to see a new episode of my In GAD We Trust podcast, especially as I said on Thursday that there was unlikely to be one this weekend — well, okay, perhaps a I’m little less surprised than you, since I (sort of) planned, recorded, and (sort of) edited this, but you get the idea. However, on Thursday everything (sort of) came together and I was able to record this almost in one take and so here we are.

A little while ago, I learned of the linguist Paul Grice and his formalisation of communication via the Co-operative Principle, and it struck me that there was much in the idea that related to Golden Age detective fiction in a way that might be unique. The problem was, I couldn’t quite see my way through my thinking, and so I consigned the idea to the pending box of Maybe I’ll Write About That Someday. which is a veritable black hole of half-formed ideas.

And then, during the course of Thursday, inspiration struck and I found the illustrations I would need to limn my thinking, and so I raced home from work and recorded this tout seul, did a very quick edit (I had a busy Friday ahead) and here is the result: me talking for almost an hour on a subject I grasp in an at-best very shallow way, with no-one sat opposite me to contradict or correct my wanderings…but I would love to know what you make of it, if a speculative meander through the philosophical implications of the linguistics of the mystery story (the mystery story, Jim) doesn’t sound like too hard work.

It’s a bit free-form — this episode is very much Jazz, where the others are more Classical — but I hope you can see the point I’m making, and why I found it quite exciting when the idea struck me.

You can listen to the podcast on iTunes here, on Spotify here, or by using the player below. 

Thanks, as always, for taking the time to listen, and to Jonny Berlinder for the music. It occurs to me that I can include here, at the bottom of this post, ROT13‘d possible spoilers from the books I cite late in the episode, but I’ll see if there’s any interest before seeking them out to state as accurately as possible.

More In GAD We Trust in a fortnight — with a guest, I promise — and don’t forget that Moira, Brad, and I will be discussing After the Funeral (1953) by Agatha Christie in spoiler-rich detail at some point in October, too. We haven’t set a date yet, that’s a job for this weekend, but it’s definitely happening so get ready…

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Alll episodes of In GAD We Trust can be found on the blog by clicking here.

Gutsy of me to suggest, on my site dedicated to the discussion of Golden Age detective fiction, that a lot of the terminology used to talk about these stories is incorrect, eh? Well, thankfully I’m not the one trying to convince you; that job falls to Mr. Scott K. Ratner.

Those of you who know Scott from the Golden Age Detection Facebook group, or remember his previous appearance on the podcast, will know how intelligently he dissects the subgenre, and this is no exception. For a number of years now, he’s been working tirelessly to promote the idea that talking about “fair play” in GAD is a fool’s errand — detective stories aren’t games codified by objective standards, and so the idea of being “fair” in the doling out of evidence and clues doesn’t really apply.

And, y’know, he’s got a point.

You’ll doubtless be aghast at such apostasy, but, well, that’s why there’s some 80 minutes of discussion ready for your listening pleasure below. I admit that I’m one to use this terminology, and this discussion helped me clarify some of Scott’s opposition to the phrases and nomenclature we’ve come to adopt so easily down the years (this is why he should start a blog, see, so we could have all this sort of stuff in one easy-to-find place). And, let’s be clear: this is no attack on detective fiction itself, but instead simply an invitation to consider that using the terms we do might — just might — be to the detriment of the form.

You can listen to the podcast on iTunes here, on Spotify here, or by using the player below. 

Thanks of course go to Scott, who got up so early to record this that I’m not sure he even bothered going to sleep first, to Jonny Berliner for the music, and to all of you at home listening along and justifying this endeavour. The relatively paltry list of tags below is because I’ve been hit with the quandary of precisely what we do discuss that might crop up elsewhere and so be worth tagging: I’ve gone with the authors we cite directly and a few general topics, but if you think anything in particular needs highlighting, let me know.

More podcast in a fortnight, stay safe in the meantime.

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All episodes of In GAD We Trust can be found on the blog by clicking here.

Prepare yourself for what might just be the most jam-packed episode of In GAD We Trust to date — when you sit down with Tony Medawar, there’s always going to be a lot to talk about.

With the podcast coming to an end after episode 30, I was hardly going to let Tony get away without one last discussion about all the great work he’s doing for fans of classic era detective fiction. Firstly there’s the fourth Bodies from the Library collection coming out in September, then the small matter of the fifth and sixth collections due out in succeeding years and the first entry in what might just be a new parallel series of uncollected short fiction that will see the light of day in 2022.

Deep breath now…

We also discuss the forthcoming republication this September of Anthony Berkeley’s novel The Wintringham Mystery (1927), originally serialised in the Daily Mirror in 1926 before being slightly rewritten and published in novel form as Cicely Disappears (1927) under the nom de plume A. Monmouth Platts. Tony has written the introduction for this new edition, which includes the story of how the puzzle was apparently too tough even for Agatha Christie. Then there’s the not insignificant matter of Tony’s role as producer of the International Agatha Christie Festival, also in September, where, alongside the great and the good of Agatha Christie research and discussion, I have a small part to play about which I am very excited.

Then we look at forthcoming projects Tony has brewing, including some very interesting Anthony Berkeley news, and…oh, hell, plenty of other things, too — as I say, it’s a jam-packed episode. And I ask the stupidest question I think I’ve ever recorded, which is now preserved here for posterity.

You can listen to the podcast on iTunes here, on Spotify here, or by using the player below. 

Thanks of course go to Tony for giving his time to record this and the efforts he continues to go to on all our behalfs, to Jonny Berliner for my theme tune, and to you all for listening at home. The talk given by Mark Aldridge that Tony mentions in the above can be found here and the episode of In GAD We Trust in which Mark talked about his frankly superb book Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World (2020) can be found here. Go and buy it. Go and buy it now.

More podcast in two weeks, hope you’re all keeping safe and well in the meantime.

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All episodes of In GAD We Trust can be found on the blog here.