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Reading Recommendations: Lady Lupin, Dorothy L. Sayers and Jane Austen
Dear listeners, We have arrived at our final reading update of 2025! I hope you have enjoyed getting this monthly peek into what Leandra and I are reading while we are working on Shedunnit, and have been inspired to pick up a book or two yourself as a result. We&
The Documents in the Case by Dorothy L. Sayers
Published: 1930 | Series: Standalone This 1930 mystery novel is told entirely through letters, diary entries, and documents. When a man dies from apparent mushroom poisoning, the evidence seems clear, until a brilliant discovery reveals it might be murder, launching an intricate investigation into whether his death was accidental or carefully
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
Published: 1892 | Series: Sherlock Holmes Short Stories Collection 1 This is the first collection of Sherlock Holmes short stories, containing twelve tales that were published in the Strand Magazine between July 1891 and June 1892. It includes such classics as "A Scandal in Bohemia" and "The Adventure
Bonus: End of Year Wrap Up 2025
Leandra and I discuss a complete breakdown of the trends and statistics involving the book club's voting polls and short list results.
Metropolitan Mysteries, edited by Martin Edwards
Published: 2024 | Series: British Library Crime Classics This anthology of short stories includes cases from some of London's finest fictional detectives, including Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, John Dickson Carr’s Dr Gideon Fell and Anthony Gilbert's Inspector Field. The Shedunnit Book Club's
A Christmas Feast (of Murder Mysteries)
Dear listeners, This is seventh time December has rolled around during the time I've been making Shedunnit, which means that I've had plenty of opportunity to think about festive and wintry themes in murder mysteries. And, with the exception of 2022 (when I lost my voice
A Christmas Feast Transcript
Make sure nobody has tampered with your turkey…
A Christmas Feast
Make sure nobody has tampered with your turkey…
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Make sure nobody has tampered with your turkey…
Reappraising Anthony Berkeley
A closer look at the Detection Club co-founder.
Not To Be Taken by Anthony Berkeley
Published: 1938 | Series: Standalone The apparently natural death of a village squire in Dorsetshire turns out to be a nasty case of arsenic poisoning that sets tongues wagging. About Anthony Berkeley Anthony Berkeley (1893-1971) was an influential British crime writer who revolutionized detective fiction through psychological complexity and unreliable narration.
Book Club Conversation: The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L Sayers (Full Spoilers)
This is the Shedunnit Book Club Conversation episode for December 2025.
Book Club Fact File: The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L Sayers (No Spoilers)
This is the Shedunnit Book Club Fact File episode for December 2025.
Audiobook: Waxworks by Ethel Lina White
This is your audiobook for December 2025.
A Crime Writer Goes To Hollywood...
Dear listeners, For the newest instalment in the Green Penguin Book Club series, I got to venture a little into a new sphere: the golden age of Hollywood. The book I look at in this episode, The Rasp by Philip MacDonald, set its British author on a path that resulted
The Rasp (Green Penguin Book Club 12)
Film historian Sergio Angelini joins Caroline to discuss a rather cinematic whodunnit.
The Rasp Transcript (Green Penguin Book Club 12)
Green Penguin Music Caroline: Welcome to Shedunnit. I’m Caroline Crampton. And welcome back to Green Penguin Book Club, a series within Shedunnit that documents my journey of reading and discussing every crime or green title from the main Penguin series, in order. Our book today is The Rasp by
The Rasp (Green Penguin Book Club 12, Ad Free)
Film historian Sergio Angelini joins Caroline to discuss a rather cinematic whodunnit.
The Rasp by Philip MacDonald
Published: 1924 | Series: Anthony Gethryn #1 Philip MacDonald's first detective novel introduces amateur detective Anthony Gethryn and follows him as he investigates the murder of a cabinet minister bludgeoned to death with a wood-rasp at his English country house where everyone seems to have an alibi. About Philip
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
Published: 1926 | Series: Hercule Poirot 4 Roger Ackroyd, a wealthy widower, is found stabbed to death in his locked study. The victim's friend Dr. Sheppard narrates as the brilliant detective Hercule Poirot, newly retired to their village, investigates the murder. Multiple suspects emerge, each with secrets and motives,
The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers
Published: 1934 | Series: Lord Peter Wimsey 10 A car accident strands Lord Peter Wimsey and his manservant Bunter in the Lincolnshire fens on New Year's Eve. Taken in by the vicar of nearby village Fenchurch St Paul, Lord Peter ends up assisting with a record-breaking bell-ringing attempt, and
Envious Casca by Georgette Heyer
Published: 1941 | Series: Hannasyde & Hemingway 6 | Also found under the title A Christmas Party Inspector Hemingway of Scotland Yard investigates when wealthy Nathaniel Herriard is stabbed to death in his locked bedroom during a tension-filled Christmas house party at Lexham Manor. About Georgette Heyer Georgette Heyer (1902–1974) is
Tragedy at Law by Cyril Hare
Published: 1942 | Series: Francis Pettigrew 1 A legal mystery in which High Court judge Mr Justice Barber receives anonymous death threats while traveling England's Southern Circuit, prompting barrister Francis Pettigrew to investigate before the threats become reality. About Cyril Hare Cyril Hare was the pseudonym of Alfred Alexander
Curiosity Killed the Cat by Joan Cockin
Published: 1949 | Series: Inspector Cam, Book 1 In Joan Cockin's 1949 mystery novel, Inspector Cam investigates the murder of a nosy civil servant in the village of Little Biggling, where postwar tensions simmer between locals and the Ministry of Scientific Research staff who have overstayed their wartime occupation.
Reading Recommendations: A Christie in Disguise
Dear listeners, This is the annual period where I begin to feel like I'm racing towards the end of the year, trying to get all the podcasting done before taking a break over Christmas. As such, my reading becomes very functional for a while — if it's
Absent in the Spring by Mary Westmacott
Published: 1944 | Series: Standalone, one of Agatha Christie's six novels written under her "Mary Westmacott" pseudonym. Stranded between trains on a journey back from the Middle East to England, smug, self-satisfied Joan Scudamore finds herself reflecting upon her life, her family, and finally coming to grips
The Case of Georgette Heyer
Dear listeners, I know exactly when I started work on today's new episode of Shedunnit. It was 22nd January 2025 when I cracked open Georgette Heyer's first work of crime fiction, Footsteps in the Dark. (I do love to document what I read and when.) Since
Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer
Published: 1932 | Series: Standalone A brother and sister inherit a country house built on the foundations of an ancient abbey, and soon discover it harbours a mysterious and violent past. Is the house merely haunted, or is a murderer at work? About Georgette Heyer Georgette Heyer (1902–1974) is best
The Case of Georgette Heyer
Why aren’t her dozen detective novels better known?
The Case of Georgette Heyer Transcript
If I say the name Georgette Heyer, it immediately conjures a certain set of images, doesn't it? Debutantes in ballgowns designed to have the Empire silhouette, dashing men in flawless Regency evening dress, or else the military uniforms of the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. Opulent Mayfair townhouses, beautiful
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Why aren’t her dozen detective novels better known?
Remember, Remember
Crime fiction and the 5th November.
Book Club Fact File: A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee (No Spoilers)
Book Club Conversation: A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee (Full Spoilers)
Audiobook: A Case of Identity by Arthur Conan Doyle
A Most Mysterious Halloween
Dear listeners, One might assume that, with all of its emphasis on logical deduction and empirical evidence, classic detective fiction would give all things spooky and supernatural a wide berth. And yet right from the very start with Edgar Allen Poe's short stories from the 1840s, writers have
Halloween
A murder mystery can be spooky, too.
Halloween Transcript
Caroline: A good murder mystery has a lot in common with a good magic trick. Both art forms combine an emphasis on transparency with their audience while simultaneously trying their best to deceive. The writer of a fair play mystery has an obligation not to conceal clues from their reader,
Halloween (Ad Free)
A murder mystery can be spooky, too.
Reading Recommendations: Chesterton, Christie and More
Dear listeners, Do you like to read seasonally, matching your crime fiction to your own calendar? Or does it not matter to you whether there's snow on the ground outside when snow is falling in your book? Autumn is in full swing where both Leandra and I live,
The Servant Problem (And A New Show)
Dear listeners, Part of what makes reading classic murder mysteries so enjoyable is the glimpse it offers into a world that is so unlike the one we inhabit today. Nothing makes the interwar "golden age" of detective fiction feel more alien to me than the ubiquity of servants.
The Servant Problem
How the interwar servant shortage changed detective fiction.
The Servant Problem Transcript
Caroline: In the autumn of 1919, Agatha Christie left Torquay and travelled by train to London. She had given birth to her daughter, Rosalind, at Ashfield, her childhood home, just a few days before. But now she was on the brink of a new era in her life, and she
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Hitchcock and the Golden Age of Detective Fiction
On Murder!, Suspicion and more.
Book Club Conversation: Green for Danger by Christianna Brand (Full Spoilers)
Book Club Fact File: Green for Danger by Christianna Brand (No Spoilers)
Crime Clubs and Secret Societies
Dear listeners, Inspiration comes from the most unlikely places. Given all of the time that I spend reading the words that are inside books, it slightly took me by surprise when it was the image on the front of this one that gave me the idea for this episode: This
The Crime Clubs
Do secret societies have any place in murder mysteries?
Audiobook: The Warder of the Door by L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace
The Crime Clubs Transcript
Do secret societies have any place in murder mysteries?
The Crime Clubs (Ad Free)
Reading Recommendations: A Double Christie Month
Dear listeners, We're back with more reading updates! I hope this month has brought you some good crime fiction. This time, we have a fairly classic line up for you, with both Shedunnit production assistant Leandra and I revisiting some Agatha Christie. You can catch up with our
Did E.C. Bentley Predict The Golden Age in 1913?
A closer look at Trent's Last Case.
Trent's Last Case (Green Penguin Book Club 11)
Australian mystery reading duo Flex and Herds join Caroline to look at this influential whodunnit.
Trent's Last Case Transcript (Green Penguin Book Club 11)
Australian mystery reading duo Flex and Herds join Caroline to look at this influential whodunnit.
Trent's Last Case (Green Penguin Book Club 11, Ad Free)
Australian mystery reading duo Flex and Herds join Caroline to look at this influential whodunnit.
Three Contemporary Crime Novels I Have Enjoyed
I do read things from the 2020s as well as the 1920s.
Book Club Conversation: Tragedy at Law by Cyril Hare (Full Spoilers)
Book Club Fact File: Tragedy at Law by Cyril Hare (No Spoilers)
The Art of the Cluefinder
Dear listeners, Are you the kind of reader who likes to solve the mystery as you read, racing the detective to the solution, or do you prefer to spectate and allow the author to lay out the resolution for you? Personally, I flip between these two styles: there are some
The Cluefinder
A literary device from the golden age of detective fiction is making a comeback.
The Cluefinder Transcript
Caroline: The classic murder mystery is full of tropes. You will be familiar with lots of them: the closed circle of suspects, the automatic suspicion of the least likely perpetrator, the impossible crime, the locked room mystery, the final chapter reveal, the last minute twist. In addition to these, a
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Audiobook: The Fenchurch Street Mystery by Baroness Orczy
Reading Recommendations: Lighthouse, Penhallow, Mice, Fate
Dear listeners, Summer holidays are coming to an end at Shedunnit HQ and I'm excited about the planning I've been doing for the next few months of podcasting. I think there are some good episodes coming up between now and the end of the year. Meanwhile,
Rediscovering Miss Marple
Reading Agatha Christie like it's 1930.
Rediscovering Miss Marple
Getting back in touch with the foremost citizen of St Mary Mead.
Rediscovering Miss Marple Transcript
Caroline: Some characters are so popular and recognisable that they can become detached from their point of origin. Miss Marple is such a one. There were elderly women sleuths before her, but every single village busybody who solves crimes since has existed in her shadow. Her stories and novels are
Bonus: Hotline Extras II
We're All Going On A Summer Holiday
A trip into the Shedunnit archive.
Book Club Fact File: The Cellars of the Majestic by Georges Simenon (No Spoilers)
Book Club Conversation: The Cellars of the Majestic by Georges Simenon (Full Spoilers)
Murder at the Bookshop
Here are some bibliomysteries that you might want to try.
Murder at the Bookshop
Death lurks among the shelves — in crime fiction, that is.
Murder at the Bookshop Transcript
Caroline: Certain jobs and pastimes come with a higher degree of risk. This we know. I hope that everyone who decides to become a racing driver, or climb a mountain without ropes, or chase tornados, understands that their chosen activity comes with a heightened chance of injury or death. What
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Audiobook: A Mystery of the Sand-Hills by R Austin Freeman
Reading Recommendations: Paretsky, MacDonald, Lee, Mead
Dear listeners, The month of July has flown by and it's time for another book recommendation newsletter, in which I and Shedunnit production assistant Leandra offer you a peek into our personal reading experience while we are working on the podcast. You can catch up with the last
Investigating a Death on Paper
Dear listener, For today's new episode, I am venturing into the world of epistolary crime novels. This is the kind of mystery where the story is told through a series of letters or documents rather than a continuous prose narrative. There is a strong tradition of this format
Death on Paper
There’s a lot of fun to be had with an epistolary mystery.
Death On Paper Transcript
Caroline: Dear listener, I trust this letter finds you well. Perhaps you are curled up somewhere cosy, pressing play as a break from reading your favourite detective novel. Or maybe you are out and about, using the podcast to stay connected to the golden age of detective fiction even while
Death on Paper (Ad Free)
July Update from the Shedunnit Book Club
What we're doing and reading this month.
Three Books That Live On My Desk
The reference works that make Shedunnit possible.
Book Club Conversation: The Feast by Margaret Kennedy (Full Spoilers)
Book Club Fact File: The Feast by Margaret Kennedy (No Spoilers)
The Man in the Dark
A closer look at John Ferguson's foggy 1928 "Ealing mystery".
The Man in the Dark (Green Penguin Book Club 10)
Golden age expert Kate Jackson joins Caroline to read John Ferguson’s intriguing “Ealing mystery”.
The Man in the Dark Transcript (Green Penguin Book Club 10)
Green Penguin Music Caroline: Welcome to Shedunnit. I’m Caroline Crampton. And welcome back to Green Penguin Book Club, a series within Shedunnit that documents my journey of reading and discussing every crime or green title from the main Penguin series, in order. Our book today is The Man in
The Man in the Dark (Green Penguin Book Club 10, Ad Free)
Reading Recommendations: Ferguson, Kennedy, Rinehart, Osler
Dear listeners, It's time for another monthly book recommendation newsletter, in which I and Shedunnit production assistant Leandra offer you a peek of our personal reading experience. There was some excellent chat in the comments of last month's edition, so if you have suggestions for what
Audiobook: The Murder on the Golf Links by M McDonnell Bodkin
Inside The Poison Book
Dear friends, It was last autumn, when I was rereading Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair at Styles for the Green Penguin Book Club episode on that book, that I began to wonder what the point of the "poison book" really was. I'm sure you
The Poison Book Transcript
Caroline: "Poison book" or "poison register" is a phrase that crops up quite a bit in golden age detective fiction. I'm sure lots of you have come across it in this fictional context, where a character is asked to sign such a volume so
The Poison Book
How crime writers turned pharmaceutical regulations into plot points. Apple Podcasts | Spotify | BBC Sounds | Other apps | RSS | Transcript My guest for this episode is Dr Kathryn Harkup. Her book V is for Venom: Agatha Christie’s Chemicals of Death is available now. Support the podcast by joining the Shedunnit Book
The Poison Book (Ad Free)
Sherlock and Shedunnit
A trip into the Shedunnit archive.