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 in a move to Los Angeles and a successful career in the movie business. It felt right, then, to have as my guest to consider The Rasp the film historian Sergio Angelini, who makes his own podcast about all things film noir and crime fiction.

The Rasp was first published in 1924 and then joined the Penguin series in January 1937 as Penguin 79. It was Philip MacDonald's first solo novel (he had previously written two books with his father under the collective pseudonym "Oliver Fleming"). The Rasp also marks the first appearance of Colonel Anthony Gethryn, an ex-intelligence officer amateur detective about whom Philip would eventually write twelve books. Eleven of these appeared in the 1920s and 1930s and then he published one final Gethryn in 1959, The List of Adrian Messenger.

In 1931, MacDonald moved to Hollywood with his wife, the writer F. Ruth Howard. His fiction had been popular in Britain and he seems like an obvious candidate for membership of the Detection Club, but since he emigrated the year it really got going he was probably not included because of his absence. He continued to be an experimental and interesting crime writer, though, publishing books in the 1930s like X v. Rex, an early example of a serial killer whodunnit, and The Maze, which was his attempt to create a fully fair play epistolary mystery. Meanwhile, he was also writing film scripts for series like those starring Charlie Chan and Mr Moto, and occasionally adapting his own work for the screen too. As you'll hear towards the end of this episode from Sergio, MacDonald's film career is very interesting indeed, spanning quota quickies, science fiction, and films that drew cameos from actors like Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. I finished our conversation with a long list of films I wanted to watch and I hope you will too.

The Rasp definitely falls into the category of "book I would probably never have read if it weren't for the podcast" but I don't regret it for a second. I found Philip MacDonald's debut to be a fascinating blend of Sherlock Holmes/Dr Thorndyke meticulousness and a more dashing, adventurous style that reminded me of Margery Allingham. Anthony Gethryn's journalism connections and his knowledge of detective fiction put me strongly in mind of past Green Penguin read Trent's Last Case by E.C. Bentley and A.A. Milne's The Red House Mystery, but there's much better momentum in this book, such that you can read it like a real pageturner (I read it in one late night and one early morning!). Sergio said during our interview that several of the big climactic scenes feel very cinematic and I agree — even though MacDonald wasn't yet writing for the screen, he already had a good sense for atmosphere and pace. I certainly finished work on this episode keen to try another of his novels. Perhaps I'll skip to the end next and try The List of Adrian Messenger, since the film adaptation sounds incredible.

This was my last Green Penguin read of 2025, but there will be one more episode coming about the series before the end of the year, before I get stuck into another batch of books with new guests in 2026. There's a really interesting mixture of titles coming up in the sequence, with a couple of truly famous titles (by Dorothy L. Sayers and Arthur Conan Doyle respectively) as well as several that I'd never even heard of before. Also, I think next year is the year that I will finally make it into triple figures in terms of the book's numbering — one of my reads will be Penguin 101! You can browse the full Penguin series and see what's coming up next on this handy list.

Until next time,

Caroline

You can listen to every episode of Shedunnit at shedunnitshow.com or on all major podcast apps. Selected episodes are available on BBC Sounds. There are also transcripts of all episodes on the website. The podcast is now newsletter-only — we're not updating social media — so if you'd like to spread the word about the show consider forwarding this email to a mystery-loving friend with the addition of a personal recommendation. 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).

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 not a book I need to look at for the show, I'm not reading it. There's something immensely satisfying about crossing books off my research list, counting down towards the cosy period when I'm going to read nothing but stories I choose for pleasure! Are you also planning your winter reading? Let us know what you've got lined up, I need inspiration.

If you enjoy these book recommendation newsletters, in which we offer you a peek into our personal reading experience while we are working behind the scenes on the show, you might like to catch up with the last edition here or share your own reading plans in the comments here. The entire Shedunnit newsletter archive can be found here.

Caroline Has Read: Absent in the Spring by Mary Westmacott

I am convinced that this was Agatha Christie's most successful experiment with horror fiction. (Mary Westmacott, of course, being Christie's "secret" pseudonym for her six non-crime novels.) This one from 1944 follows a self-satisfied, middle class English woman as she travels back home from visiting her married daughter in Baghdad. Owing to some bad weather, she misses a connection and has to wait for an unknown number of days at a remote rest-house on the Turkish border until the next train can get through. She quickly finishes the small amount of reading material she has with her and runs out of writing paper. There is nothing to do and nobody to talk to, beyond the staff who have no interest in engaging with her.

For the first time in her life, she has nothing but her own mind to fill her days. She takes desultory walks in the surrounding desert, reliving happy memories of her wonderful husband, lovely children, and attentive neighbours. But the more she thinks about her life, the more she comes to realise that she has been living in a smug, self-centred bubble, absolutely unaware of what is really going on around her. Her life is nothing like she has always assumed, nor do her loved ones feel the way about her she supposed that they did. It's an intense and fascinating psychological portrait. Christie wrote this book in three days straight without sleeping during WW2, and the intensity of tone and the narrative momentum is consistent with this mode of creation. This was a re-read for me — I haven't touched a Westmacott for a few years but I needed to revisit them for a future project and I've been very favourably impressed. I'd highly recommend this book.

Caroline Will Read: The Burning Court by John Dickson Carr

I've long been a bit of a JDC sceptic — I suspect because I read a couple of duds by accident as my first ones of his and it put me off — but my guest for the Green Penguin Book Club episode that is coming out next week has convinced me to give this 1937 standalone mystery a go. Apparently it has both a locked room and witches! I'm excited.

Leandra Has Read: Death of an Author by E.C.R. Lorac

This bibliomystery opens with the reveal that Vivian Lestrange, the author of a popular crime novel titled The Charterhouse Case, might be a woman. Gasp! The cool, well-spoken young woman is adamant, however, that she wants to keep her true gender from the public media. This becomes a problem when that same woman enters a police station and introduces herself as Eleanor Clarke, claiming that her employer — the author Vivian Lestrange — is missing.

While the ending disappointed me, I loved how Lorac addresses the question of whether or not one could recognise a woman's writing from that of a man's. I would also venture a guess that Death of an Author was inspired by the events following Anna Katharine Green's publication of The Leavenworth Case in 1878, one of the great nineteenth century crime novels. At the time, members of the Pennsylvania Legislature debated over whether a woman would have the capability of writing such a book. If you aren't convinced by my theory, consider this: setting aside the similarities between The Leavenworth Case and The Charterhouse Case, doesn't Vivian Lestrange sound an awful lot like Violet Strange, the girl sleuth also created by Green? Murder by Matchlight remains my favourite of Lorac's works thus far, but I did enjoy this book quite a bit.

Leandra Will Read: Murder for Christmas by Frances Duncan

I will be rereading Murder for Christmas in the next month. In this 1949 mystery, Benedict Grame has invited an unusual grouping of guests to Sherbroome House for the holidays. One of those guests is Mordecai Tremaine, an amateur sleuth with a secret penchant for reading romance novels. He accepts Grame's invitation with a sense of foreboding, and his instincts are proven correct when Father Christmas is discovered dead under the tree as the clock strikes midnight on Christmas Eve.

I recall really enjoying Mordecai Tremaine's demeanor and his approach toward investigating the crime at hand. Frances Duncan's writing style sets a wonderful atmosphere of anticipation as well. If you are looking for a Christmas mystery this winter season, then I recommend this one!

That's what we've got coming up reading-wise. What are you planning to read this month? Let us know by replying directly or by leaving a comment to join the conversation with other readers. We'll have one more update this year in mid-December which I expect will be fairly festive... If you'd like to follow our reading adventures in between these posts, I (try to) publish monthly reading updates on my blog/newsletter and Leandra documents what she's reading on her YouTube channel.

Until next time,

Caroline

Some book links are affiliate links, meaning that the podcast receives a small commission when you purchase a book there (the price remains the same for you).

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 then, I have read her eleven other crime novels, two biographies and dipped into several other works of non-fiction about her. All with the aim of answering this deceptively simple question: why isn't Georgette Heyer better known as a golden age detective novelist?

The facts are all there. Heyer published Footsteps in 1932, right in the middle of the interwar period we call the "golden age". She followed it with almost a crime novel a year until 1942, and then published her final two in the early 1950s. She created a pair of recurring Scotland Yard detectives who are in the majority of her books and various one-off inspectors for the rest. She wrote mysteries set in country houses, suburban villas and London flats. Her sleuths tackle poisonings, shootings and bludgeonings. She experimented variously with locked room murders, impossible crimes, and howdunnits. And yet the name "Georgette Heyer" very rarely appears in the same sentence as "detective novelist". I had to know why.

I enlisted the help of Heyer biographer and expert Jennifer Kloester in this quest and learned a lot about the conditions of Heyer's career, why she came to write crime fiction at all, and the frankly astonishing popularity of her historical fiction. By the time of her death in 1974, Jen says, she was selling a million books a year in paperback alone. And she has never been out of print since. I hope you will enjoy listening to the fruits of my almost-a-year spent immersed in Heyer's crime novels, and perhaps – if you haven't already — pick up one for yourself.

And now, I thought I would give you a whistle-stop tour of Georgette Heyer's detective novels.

Footsteps in the Dark

Her first, from 1932. More of a thriller/adventure story than a pure detective novel — a bit like The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie. It follows the hijinks that occur when a brother and sister inherit a country house built on the foundations of an ancient abbey, and soon discover that it harbours a mysterious and violent past. Is the house merely haunted, or is a murderer at work?

Why Shoot a Butler?

Frank Amberley, a barrister, acts as the amateur sleuth in this mystery about the murder of a country house butler. Said butler is discovered shot in a car parked in a remote lane with a young woman standing over him holding a loaded pistol, although none of the shots have been fired. Did she do it? This book from 1933 riffs delightfully on the "butler did it" cliché and even includes a masked ball that echoes similar scenes in Heyer's Regency fiction.

The Unfinished Clue

It feels like Heyer really hit her stride with this 1934 whodunnit. A very unlikeable middle aged man named General Sir Arthur Billington-Smith, who reins supreme in his country household, is found stabbed to death one night in his study. On the table is an incomplete note that reads "there.." — the unfinished clue of the title. An Inspector Harding from Scotland Yard is drafted into find the killer from the dead man's friends and family.

Death in the Stocks

Another superb setup for her 1935 effort: a corpse clad in evening dress is found locked in the stocks on a village green. Superintendent Hanasyde of Scotland Yard — who would become one of Heyer's two recurring detectives — is called in to investigate. He spends much of the book sparring amusingly with the dead man's half-siblings, Kenneth and Antonia Vereker, who resolutely refuse to cooperate with the police like a good murder mystery subject should. This book also introduces solicitor Giles Carrington, who then recurs in the next novel.

Behold, Here's Poison

The Shedunnit Book Club read this 1936 book back in April 2022, which was my first encounter with Heyer's detective fiction. It's a rather clever poisoning mystery set in a leafy north-west suburb of London (I suspect a thinly disguised Hampstead). Once again, Hanasyde and his sidekick Sergeant Hemingway are on the case, assisted by Giles Carrington. By this point, Heyer had settled into a rhythm of writing about dysfunctional families rocked by murders, often with an inheritance angle, and this one is no different. I especially like the character of Randall Matthews, who is a 1930s version of the louche Regency rake with a heart of gold.

They Found Him Dead

In this 1937 novel, Heyer takes her family inheritance mystery setting to the extreme, with multiple deaths among people with the same surname. There's also an imperious matriarch with a rather good companion-secretary, and a cinema-obsessed boy who is desperate to Hanasyde and Sergeant Hemingway. This boy, Timothy Harte, then makes a comeback as an adult in 1951's Duplicate Death. Those who collect stereotypical portrayals of early 20C rich Americans will enjoy this one, because this book contains a great example of the "Cucumber King of California" character type. (Award yourself ten points if you know what that is is a reference to.)

A Blunt Instrument

1938 saw another case for Hanasyde and Hemingway, this time set in a suburban villa. The book opens at the moment when the body of Ernest Fletcher is discovered — a well liked and respected householder. There seems to be a total lack of suspects. The levity and originality in this book is mostly provided by Constable Glass, the first officer on the scene, who is a fundamentalist Christian and loves to speak to his superior officers via only scriptural quotations. Hemingway, in particular, finds that this really gets on his nerves.

No Wind of Blame

This 1939 book was Heyer's first and only real attempt at a true "impossible crime". A man is shot while crossing a bridge in full view of witnesses. Nobody can find the gun or the shooter, nor is it possible that, given the angle, the culprit got away unobserved. How was it done? As Jen explains in our episode, Georgette's husband Ronald devised the setup of this one and she had to get him to explain it again before she could write the ending. Personally, my favourite bit of this book is Ermyntrude Carter, a former chorus girl who has made good via a sequence of successful marriages.

Envious Casca

You will also find this book republished under the title A Christmas Party. Perhaps because of its seasonal setting, this book gets a lot of marketing (particularly during the holiday season) but to my mind it's one of her weakest novels. An unpleasant family gathers for Christmas, everyone is horrible, and the character who has money to will as he sees fit is murdered. I find much of Georgette's wit lacking from this book, and as such it's not such an enjoyable read. It came out in 1941, after a year with no crime novel in 1940 (she had previously done one a year since 1932). Maybe she had lost the knack a little?

Penhallow

This 1942 book is completely unlike all of her other crime fiction and only just squeaks onto the list on the grounds that there is a murder in it. It's also Heyer's only experiment in writing a howdunnit, rather than a whodunnit. I think the closest comparison is Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, or maybe Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. The plot revolves around the Penhallow family and their Gothic Cornwall manor house. The gruesome patriarch wants all of his adult children living under his thumb so that he can terrorise and control them as he does his meek second wife. It comes as no surprise when one of them snaps, but who and how is rather a revelation. Penhallow is a book that Heyer expected to be a " tour de force" and a huge bestseller, and was then slightly disappointed in the reception. It's her most "Marmite" book — I think you will either love it or hate it. (I loved it). It reminds me of Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey.

Duplicate Death

Heyer made a return to writing crime fiction with this book in 1951, most likely because she needed money for her ever-more complicated tax affairs (she shared this problem with Agatha Christie). The murder takes place during a duplicate bridge party at the house of a London social climber. Hemingway, now a Chief Inspector, helms the case. I like the central London setting and the use Heyer makes of the card game, but otherwise it's a fairly unremarkable mystery.

Detection Unlimited

Her final whodunnit, from 1953. It's a village mystery, with Hemingway summoned from London to take charge after an unpopular solicitor is shot in his garden. This is definitely a case of too many suspects, too many weapons — ten people locally have excellent motives for the murder, and there are dozens of guns that fit the ballistics profile. A few things I liked in this book: the mention of a new "River Board" and "riparian rights" (I did once write a book about the Thames, after all), the character who breeds Pekinese dogs and gives them all names beginning with U, and the descriptions of a country village going through post WW2 transition (à la A Murder is Announced).

I hope you are now Heyer-curious — I certainly still am, despite having read at least a book a month of hers this year. I'm now considering starting a project around her historical fiction...

Until next time,

Caroline

You can listen to every episode of Shedunnit at shedunnitshow.com or on all major podcast apps. Selected episodes are available on BBC Sounds. There are also transcripts of all episodes on the website. The podcast is now newsletter-only — we're not updating social media — so if you'd like to spread the word about the show consider forwarding this email to a mystery-loving friend with the addition of a personal recommendation. Some book links are affiliate links, meaning that the podcast receives a small commission when you purchase a book there (the price remains the same for you).