(Old feed) Shedunnit Book Club — Seasoned Detectives

This is your audiobook for June 2022. "The Dead Witness, or The Bush Waterhole" was first published in 1866 and is one of the first known detective short stories to be written by a woman. It appeared in a Melbourne magazine named the Australian Journal and was credited to "Waif Wander" or W. W. — the penname that Irish-Canadian immigrant Mary Fortune used for her writing in Australia.

Charles Dickens was a journalist as well as a novelist, and he was very interested in the formation of the Metropolitan Police's detective force. In this account, first published on 14th June, 1851 in Household Words, he tells the reader about a night he spent out on the beat with some of London's first detectives.

In which I attempt to answer questions submitted by book club members in a "quickfire" fashion and mostly fail.

If you'd like to submit a question for a future bonus episode, you can do that in the forum here.

F. Tennyson Jesse created a way of telling crime stories that still influences us today.

Books mentioned: — Murder and Its Motives by F. Tennyson Jesse — "The Mask" by F. Tennyson Jesse — The Sword of Deborah by F. Tennyson Jesse — The Trial of Madeleine Smith by F. Tennyson Jesse — The Trial of Rattenbury and Stoner by F. Tennyson Jesse — A Pin To See The Peepshow by F. Tennyson Jesse — Comments on Cain by F. Tennyson Jesse — Crime Writing in Interwar Britain by Victoria Stewart — A Portrait of Fryn by Joanna Colenbrander

The grandfather of detective fiction still has a lot to teach us.

Many thanks to my guest, Jim Noy. You can find out more about his work at his blog, theinvisibleevent.com. His book The Red Death Murders is available only from Amazon worldwide (link for UK; link for US).

Books mentioned: — The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe — The Red Death Murders by Jim Noy — The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe — "The Red-Headed League" by Arthur Conan Doyle collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes — Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

NB: Links to Blackwell's are affiliate links, meaning that the podcast receives a small commission when you purchase a book there (the price remains the same for you). Blackwell's is a UK bookseller that ships internationally at no extra charge.

This is the Shedunnit Book Club companion episode for May 2022, in which we are reading Miss Pinkerton aka The Double Alibi by Mary Roberts Rinehart. There is a non-spoilery plot summary included (ie no major clues or twists), but you've been warned! I’ll see you in the Shedunnit forum for our fully spoilered discussion thread on 31st May.

Choose what we read in August 2022.

NB: links to books at Blackwell’s are affiliate links, meaning that although the price remains the exactly same for you, the podcast receives a small commission on each purchase. Blackwell’s is an independent, family run bookseller in the UK that ships internationally at no extra charge.

Books mentioned: — The Case of the Chocolate Cream Killer by Kaye Jones — The Invention of Murder by Judith Flanders — The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley — "The Chocolate Box" in Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie — Peril at End House by Agatha Christie — At Bertram's Hotel by Agatha Christie — Framed For Hanging by Guy Cullingford — Sweet Poison by Rupert Penny — Deed Without A Name by Dorothy Bowers — The Black Spectacles by John Dickson Carr (aka The Problem of the Green Capsule)

NB: Links to Blackwell's are affiliate links, meaning that the podcast receives a small commission when you purchase a book there (the price remains the same for you). Blackwell's is a UK bookseller that ships internationally at no extra charge.

This is your audiobook for April 2022 — my reading of "A Discovery", chapter one of That Affair Next Door by Anna Katharine Green. 

This was Green’s eighth detective novel, first published in 1897, and her first to feature Amelia Butterworth. Amelia is a courageous, intelligent detective and the narrator of this story. As a so-called “nosy spinster” she is definitely a prototype for the Miss Marples and Miss Silvers who would come later. She shares this case with Green’s pre-existing sleuth, Ebenezer Gryce of the New York Metropolitan Police Force. If you enjoy hearing this chapter and would like to listen to me reading more of the book, let me know.

This is the Shedunnit Book Club companion episode for April 2022, in which we are reading Behold Here's Poison by Georgette Heyer. There is a non-spoilery plot summary included (ie no major clues or twists), but you've been warned! I’ll see you in the Shedunnit forum for our fully spoilered discussion thread on 30th April.

Choose what we read in July 2022.

NB: links to books at Blackwell’s are affiliate links, meaning that although the price remains the exactly same for you, the podcast receives a small commission on each purchase. Blackwell’s is an independent, family run bookseller in the UK that ships internationally at no extra charge.