(Old feed) Shedunnit Book Club — Seasoned Detectives

Please join me for a long-awaited guided tour of the role that dogs play in detective fiction.

Books mentioned: — My Lady's Money by Wilkie Collins — The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle — A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle — The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon — The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle — The Mystery of the Black Dog by Ellery Queen — "The Oracle of the Dog" by G.K. Chesterton — Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie — Postern of Fate by Agatha Christie — Peril at End House by Agatha Christie — Bats in the Belfry by E.C.R. Lorac — The Dog It Was That Died by E.C.R. Lorac — The Kennel Murder Case by SS Van Dine — Murder Underground by Mavis Doriel Hay — The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammitt — The Case of the Howling Dog by Erle Stanley Gardner — Love Lies Bleeding by Edmund Crispin — Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin

Let's spend some time with G.K. Chesterton, the first president of the Detection Club.

I am running an audience survey for the podcast at the moment to find out more about what you think of the main show, how you're enjoying your Shedunnit Book Club membership and what I can do to improve it for you. Fill it out here now or at shedunnitshow.com/survey.

For this bonus episode, you're going to hear my full interview with Gail Pittaway from the Ngaio Marsh Goes Home episode of the podcast. It seems like a really long time since I was making the Queens of Crime at War series, all about what our favourite golden age writers were doing during the Second World War, but it was barely six months ago. I hope you enjoy revisiting this conversation as much as I did when I was editing it.

This is your audiobook for March 2022 — my reading of "The Hammer of God" by G.K. Chesterton. This short story featuring Chesterton's regular priestly detective Father Brown was first published in the Saturday Evening Post on 5 November 1910 as "The Bolt from the Blue". It was then included as "The Hammer of God" in the 1911 collection The Innocence of Father Brown. As in a lot of the Father Brown stories, Chesterton is playing with both biblical and crime fiction conventions. It's also a story that was referenced several times after publication by other authors; those familiar with the 1937 novel Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L Sayers might recognise it.

This is the Shedunnit Book Club companion episode for March 2022, in which we are reading The Wintringham Mystery aka Cicely Disappears by Anthony Berkeley. 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 March.

(So sorry this primer is arriving so late in the month, I've had some equipment failures to deal with and had to rerecord everything!)

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.

Agatha Christie knew more than most about digging up corpses.

There are no major spoilers in this episode, but be aware that there are mentions of plot points from the books listed below.

Books and sources:

— The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie — Murder in the Mews by Agatha Christie — An Autobiography by Agatha Christie — Mallowan’s Memoirs by Max Mallowan — Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie — The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie — Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie — And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie — Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie — Appointment with Death by Agatha Christie — They Came to Baghdad by Agatha Christie — Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie — Cat of Many Tails by Ellery Queen — Murder by Burial by Stanley Casson — Agatha Christie and Archaeology edited by Charlotte Trümpler

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 independent bookselling chain that ships internationally at no extra charge.

This episode of Shedunnit was first released in February 2019 and is repeated here in a rerecorded and remastered version.

Find more information about this episode and links to the books discussed at shedunnitshow.com/therules. The podcast is on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram as @ShedunnitShow, and you can find it in all major podcast apps. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss the next episode. Click here to do that now in your app of choice.

Books and articles mentioned in order of appearance: —The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne —T. S. Eliot on detective fiction —The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins —S. S. van Dine’s “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories” —Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers —The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie —Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers —Ronald Knox’s Decalogue —The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards —Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers —The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr —The Eye in the Museum by J. J. Connington —The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie —”Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?” by Edmund Wilson —Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie —The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham

Find a full transcript of this episode at shedunnitshow.com/therulestranscript

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 independent bookselling chain that ships internationally at no extra charge.

Reading my way through the last hundred years, from the 1920s to the 2020s, one mystery at a time.

My previous attempt at this reading project can be found in the episode A Century of Whodunnits.

Books mentioned: — Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L Sayers — Malice Aforethought by Francis Iles — Laurels are Poison by Gladys Mitchell — The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey — The Belting Inheritance by Julian Symons — Tied Up in Tinsel by Ngaio Marsh — A Fatal Inversion by Barbara Vine — Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell — Death in Holy Orders by P. D. James — Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch — The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Welcome to a Shedunnit Book Club bonus episode. Today, you're going to hear my full interview with Jennifer Morag Henderson from the Josephine Tey's Golden Age episode of the podcast.

Jennifer is the author of the biography Josephine Tey: A Life, and an expert in all aspects of her writing from the detective novels to the plays and beyond. Having admired her book from a far it was a real pleasure to speak to her and I hope you’ll find this illuminating.

India has a long and deep tradition of storytelling and mythology. What happens when this heritage is combined with the tropes of golden age detective fiction?

Thanks to my guest R.V. Raman. His first whodunnit is A Will To Kill and you can find more information about upcoming books in his Harith Athreya series at rvraman.com.