Dear listeners,

When reading murder mysteries, I tend to think of motive as a psychological question. What is it about the inner life of one of these characters that makes them willing to take the life of another? Revenge, greed, hate: these are internal factors that are then released into the world. Until I started researching the history of divorce for today's new episode, I hadn't considered that there could be an unrelated and exterior structure that played such a large part in the decision to kill.

With the help of my guest, legal historian Dr Jen Aston, I took a look back at the way the process for ending a marriage evolved over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and how the difficulty of doing so influenced the way murderer's motives appeared in fiction.

There are some books that I would recommend taking a closer look at if you're interested in this subject.

Jumping Jenny by Anthony Berkeley

Berkeley's 1933 detective novel is a thrilling take on an inverted mystery, with detective Roger Sheringham veering into morally grey territory as he tries to prevent the police from arriving at the real explanation for a woman's death. This is the most technical divorce murder mystery I've yet read, as it deals with the cooling off period between the issue of the "decree nisi" and the "decree absolute" and how someone with ill intentions could take advantage of this to ruin others' happiness. Berkeley had been divorced himself and was outspoken on the cruelties of the state of the law in the interwar years, so perhaps this deep engagement with the process is to be expected from him.

Malice Aforethought by Francis Iles

Two years before Jumping Jenny, Berkeley had published a different take on the question of "what might an evil and unscrupulous man do when divorce is not possible?". His answer was this "howdunnit", in which readers follow the male protagonist through all his attempts to try and kill the wife whose "decency" won't allow her to free him to be with another woman. This character is deeply unpleasant, but such is Berkeley's skill that he almost makes you root for the bad guy in the end.

Busman's Honeymoon and other works by Dorothy L. Sayers

Sayers never wrote a novel that put divorce front and centre as Berkeley did, but it simmers away in the background of much of her fiction. In Clouds of Witness, a woman is unable to escape an awful domestic abuse situation because of the imbalance in the grounds that men and women can use to seek a divorce. The Documents in the Case, our recent Green Penguin Book Club subject, features an act of adultery that might not have ended in tragedy had the dissolution of a marriage carried less social stigma at the time. And in the epistolary prologue to Busman's Honeymoon, we get a very funny description of the "Brighton quickie" method of securing divorces. Sayers makes very clear that this dishonest, absurd tactic does not meet with her approval.

I hope you find today's new episode interesting!

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,

Welcome to our reading recommendations newsletter! Once a month, I pop into your inbox to share what the Shedunnit team — that is, me and my production assistant Leandra — have been reading while we are making the show. I hope you'll find some ideas for what you might read here, or get a hint of what is coming up on the podcast in the future.

Caroline Has Read: Jumping Jenny by Anthony Berkeley

I read this 1933 novel featuring Berkeley's series detective, Roger Sheringham, as part of my research for the episode you will hear next week — I wonder if anyone can guess what the topic will be based on this title? I found it to be a fascinating but unsettling read. It opens with Sheringham attending a fancy dress party at a country house, where all the guests have been asked to come in costume as famous murderers. The host has also decorated the exterior with a fake gibbet with several dummy figures strung up on it.

By the end of the night, his own sister-in-law is hanging there, dead, for real. Was it suicide or a rather cunning murderer? Sheringham thinks he knows, and in an extraordinary move for a detective, he alters the scene to protect a friend. This sets of a confounding sequence of events, as the police try to discover what really happened, while Sheringham attempts to mislead them while concealing his own involvement. It's a really compelling formal experiment that merges the "howdunnit" with the "whodunnit" and, although not exactly comfortable reading, I would recommend it if you're interested in 1930s crime fiction innovation.

Caroline Will Read: The Murders in Praed Street by John Rhode

This is coming up soon as a Green Penguin Book Club choice. I know that John Rhode (one of the pennames used by the author Cecil Street) was incredibly prolific, but I've only read one of his books before — The Paddington Mystery from 1925, which was the Shedunnit Book Club's chosen book in January 2025. As you'll hear if you listen to the bonus episode we made about it, I wasn't a particular fan of that book, so I'm hoping that The Murders in Praed Street is something different.

Leandra Has Read: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

As members of the Shedunnit Book Club already know, this 1892 short story collection is the club's March choice. Somehow, I am ahead in schedule and managed to already re-read my copy. Quite a few years span between now and my initial reading of this collection, and one topic I looked forward to discussing with members and Caroline are which stories seem to be more memorable than others. There were plots I remembered distinctly while other stories I had no memory of having read them before. It will also be fun to discuss how often our infallible detective does, in fact, fail one way or another.

Leandra Will Read: Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett

Last year, Heather Fawcett wrapped up her fantasy series following Emily Wilde, a curmudgeonly professor and expert of faerie folklore. As saddened as I was to see Emily's adventures come to a close, I was fortunate enough to have a new release by Fawcett on the horizon! One of my most anticipated releases for 2026 is Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter. It follows a woman who runs a cat rescue in 1920s Montreal. With little options left to her, she must seek the help of a grouchy but charming wizard in order to save the cat shelter. Described as a heartwarming cozy fantasy, I imagine it will be the perfect read to get me through the latter half of winter!

That's how we started the year with our reading What are you going to be reading? You can let us know by replying directly to this email or by leaving a comment to join the conversation with other readers. We've also recently released a bonus episode just for Shedunnit Book Club members discussing our best books of 2025 and what reading habits we're adopting in 2026, so if you aren't already a member, you might like to join so you can listen to that.

Until next time,

Caroline

P.S. You'll notice that our book links are now to a new style of page on the Shedunnit website (for example), where we're gathering together all of the links to places where you can purchase each title, along with details of when said book has been mentioned on the podcast. I hope you find them a useful way to browse. If you purchase a book from one of the links on those pages, the podcast will receive a small commission for referring you — while the price remains the same for you — so it's a good way to support the show while doing something you were doing anyway!

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.