Dear listeners,

I love to be transported by the crime fiction that I read. Settings that are nothing like my everyday life, whether that's a boat on the Nile or a sheep farm in New Zealand, are always welcome. Most of all, though, I like books that take me to a different time and show me aspects of it that a non-fiction history would never cover.

I've talked about this effect a little on the podcast before, in my episode about E.C.R. Lorac's World War Two novels. Because she was writing while the war was still going on, rather than looking back on it with hindsight, we get little glimpses of what it was like to live through chaotic events, rather than remember them afterwards.

For instance: in Lorac's 1944 novel Checkmate to Murder, a Special Constable, an older man drafted in a voluntary capacity to support a police force depleted of younger recruits by the war, plays a significant role. A bit of research revealed that some factions of the public resented these "amateur" cops, as one character terms this one. No doubt this figure would have been entirely recognisable to Lorac's contemporary readers. Decades later, this day-to-day irritation of wartime life had faded in significance. Fiction can show us such things as they appeared at the time in a way that history often can't.

This brings me to the book at the heart of today's new episode: The Conjure-Man Dies by Rudolph Fisher:

I first read this book last year, when the Shedunnit Book Club chose to focus on it for our "Lesser Known Author" month. It was first published in 1932 and vividly renders the neighbourhood of New York where he worked as a hospital doctor: Harlem. Its clever plot brings together people from different class backgrounds and walks of life in a fortune-teller's waiting room and then holds them there as a murder is investigated.

The Conjure-Man Dies is a portal that can transport today's reader back to a place and an era that they have never personally experienced. Its writing is evocative and specific: Fisher uses sensory descriptions and rich dialogue to place the reader there with the characters on the streets of Harlem in the early 1930s. And the mystery doesn't play second fiddle either. This is an accomplished debut novel by a writer who has since been hailed as the "most gifted short-story writer of the Harlem Renaissance". He intended to write more detective fiction, too, but sadly died just two years after this book was published at the far too young age of 37.

In this episode, I'm considering how The Conjure-Man Dies achieves this time travel effect and what we can take from it into our appreciation of other crime fiction from the interwar years. I hope you'll come on this voyage with me! You can safely listen if you haven't read the book yet — I've been careful to avoid any significant spoilers.

I became rather interested in Rudolph Fisher after reading The Conjure-Man Dies. I picked up a copy of his only other novel, The Walls of Jericho, and also this critical study of African-American Detective fiction by Stephen Soitos — I would recommend both to any listeners keen to do a deeper dive.

I'd be fascinated to know: what are your favourite "time travel" detective novels? Which whodunnits do you find especially transporting? Reply to this email to let us know, or leave a comment to share your thoughts with other readers and see theirs in turn.

Also, I wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who responded to last week's rather nostalgic newsletter. It warmed my heart to hear how many of you have listened to every episode of the podcast, sometimes multiple times! And to those who use it to drop off to sleep, I promise I won't do any sudden jumpscares...

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.

Dear listeners,

Shedunnit has now published 180 episodes. Which for a hobby I started in late 2018 because I was sad about my job is not bad going at all. That is many, many hours of me talking about detective fiction, and I don't expect that very many people (or even anyone apart from me?) has heard it all.

You might be a mood listener, dipping in and out of the show when a title catches your eye, or you might be a more recent arrival, perhaps since we started being published on BBC Sounds as well, and the sheer size of the back catalogue makes it seem like too big a job to go back and catch up. However you listen or whenever you arrived here, I'm glad to have you!

Today, I want to highlight eight of my own personal favourite episodes from the archive. These are the ones that I loved making, either because of who I got to speak to or the books I read while doing it. If you are just beginning to delve back into the past seven-plus years of the podcast, or if you're looking for an excuse to revisit the past, perhaps this will help.

The Lady Vanishes, 2018

Given that this year marks the 100th anniversary of Agatha Christie's 1926 disappearance, this seems like an appropriate recommendation. This was the first biographical episode that I made and I really enjoyed digging into all the various sources. It pairs well with the Mary Westmacott episode from 2020, because I talk more there about how Christie drew on her traumatic experiences that year for the fiction she wrote under her pseudonym.

Brides in the Bath, 2019

I decided to tell the true crime story of "brides in the bath" killer George Joseph Smith by looking at the lives of his victims — the three women he murdered, yes, but also the other women that he defrauded or otherwise tangled with. I'm quite proud of the structure and pace this gives the episode. If you know the case, I'd recommend seeking out the short story "Three Is A Lucky Number" by Margery Allingham (available in The Allingham Casebook) for a clever re-writing of these sad events.

The Lifelong Fan, 2020

This was a tough year for many reasons, obviously. A major bright spot was getting to speak to Renée, a renowned New Zealand feminist and writer. The year before we spoke, she had just published her first crime novel, after a lifetime of reading and loving golden age detective fiction. It was delightful to get to speak to someone who enjoys Dorothy L. Sayers in the same way that I do, and who was reading these books as they came out, rather than as pieces of history. Renée sadly died in 2023 at the age of 94 and I still think about this conversation often.

Double Trouble, 2021

A professional loner, I've long been fascinated by writers who write with other people. This was fairly common in golden age detective fiction — as we've just heard, Dorothy L. Sayers co-authored a book with Robert Eustace, married couple G.D.H. and Margaret Cole wrote lots of mysteries together, and friends Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson did too. To explore this phenomenon, I spoke to married couple Cordelia Biddle and Steve Zettler. They write separately under their own names and together under the pseudonym Nero Blanc, and were delightful interviewees.

Clerical Crimes, 2022

It's not just you — there are a lot of vicars in golden age detective fiction. This was my attempt to untangle them all and it was a lot of fun. Fun fact: I've actually been asked to speak to a society of vicars about this topic later this year! One day, I'll get around to making my intended sequel, about vicars (and divines of all stripes) who wrote detective fiction. I just want an excuse to read more V.L. Whitechurch books, honestly.

At Home With Agatha Christie, 2023

Still one of the most wonderful things I've been able to do because of the podcast — have a personal tour of Greenway with a highly knowledgeable National Trust guide. I recorded it all and then put it together into this episode so that listeners could come along with me too.

Lucy, Anthony and Anne, 2024

In more recent years, I've been trying to bring slightly lesser-known crime writers to the fore by doing these episodes where I read as much of their work as I can and then analyse it for listeners. I didn't manage to read all of Lucy Malleson's prolific output — she wrote dozens of books under her primary pseudonym, Anthony Gilbert — but I did fall in love with her plain-speaking lawyer sleuth, Arthur Crook.

An Inspector Calls, 2025

This episode isn't even a year old, so you're more likely to remember it coming across your feed. I'm highlighting it because the process of making it was so wonderful for me. Sometimes, keeping all of the information I gather from all my reading organised can be really difficult — I have a system in a note-taking programme called Obsidian, but I'm not always very good at keeping proper records as I build up examples for lots of different potential future topics. However, when I started work on this subject, everything I needed was already there in my notes, making it a delight to collate and polish up into what I think was quite a satisfying episode. Every time I want to skimp on the note-taking, I try and remember this episode to encourage me to do it properly!

I enjoyed my trip down memory lane! I hope you found something entertaining here too. I'd love to hear if you have any personal favourites from the archive, or if you have any ideas for what I should do for the show's 200th episode? At current pace, it's going to come around this autumn.

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,

I have read The Documents in the Case four times now, including my most recent revisit for today's new Green Penguin Book Club episode. Every time, I become more convinced of its brilliance and its utter oddness.

If you approach this book as a Dorothy L. Sayers fan, it's a complete outlier. It's her only full-length novel not to feature Peter Wimsey, Bunter, or Harriet Vane (although we do get a small cameo from her recurring Home Office man, Sir James Lubbock). It's her only mystery written with a co-author, in this case Dr Robert Eustace — about whom much has already been said on Shedunnit, of course. Even with due credit given to the wonderful prologue of Busman's Honeymoon, it's her only fully epistolary novel. In order to keep their established fanbase on board, authors usually change one thing at a time — not everything about how they work at once. It was a bold move for a writer who had only just quit her day job.

Even for the general mystery reader who stumbles across this book without an intimate knowledge of the Sayers canon, it will stand out in its peculiarity. The suburban villa where most of the characters authoring the "documents" in this case reside is a familiar setting, but a good deal of what they write about is not. A lot of space is given in this book to philosophical questions about relativity, literature and whether science can co-exist with religion. The crime itself is an esoteric one, relying on a degree of specialised knowledge in both the murderer and those trying to apprehend them. It doesn't naturally add up to "addictive thriller".

And yet, and yet. Four times I have read this book as if it was the most compulsive page-turner. I find new things to enjoy and appreciate every time. On one read, I was full immersed in the technicalities of the crime, researching scientific instruments and falling down internet rabbit holes about mushrooms. Another time through, I was very preoccupied by the connections between this novel and other golden age-era crime fiction that draws inspiration from the Edith Thompson-Frederic Bywaters case of 1922 — my guest today, Victoria Stewart, had some fascinating details to add on this aspect. This most recent read saw me analysing the characters more deeply and, as you'll hear, becoming quite preoccupied with the fate of one in particular. Justice for Agatha Milsom, spinster, lady's companion and crafting obsessive!

Since making the Death on Paper episode last year all about epistolary crime fiction I have developed a strong partiality for this way of telling a story. I like the way that it builds suspense from the reader's confusion and encourages us to pay close attention to the way the mystery unfolds as well as what is happening. Given that I've now made 180 episodes of a podcast about golden age detective fiction, my interest in meta-narrative perhaps isn't that surprising. I would recommend trying this, or another novel, told through letters and documents, though, especially if you find yourself struggling with reading. The variation in rhythm and pace can help hold your attention.

All of which to say: I hope, after reading my "case" for The Documents in the Case, you might feel inspired to read it yourself — either for the first time, or as a re-read. It's certainly not "classic" golden age detective fiction by any means, but it's a wonderful example of the experimentation and originality that flourished in crime fiction during the interwar years. In these times of AI-generated content and endless reboots, I find myself more and more craving the weird and the unexpected in the media I consume. This book delivers all that and more.

Until next time,

Caroline

P.S. After several requests, I am considering adding a "classifieds" section to the newsletter where for a fee individuals and businesses with a Shedunnit-relevant notice or product can advertise. If that's something you could make use of, please register your interest here.

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).