Dear listeners,

One of the many things that fascinates me about Agatha Christie's detectives is that I don't think she knew at the beginning how many times she would end up writing about them. The idea of the crime series built around a central sleuthing personality is so embedded now that I suspect most debut novelists have half an eye on the sequel potential of their protagonist even as they are constructing their first case. Not only did Christie not begin her first novel expecting to become a professional writer with a career spanning decades, she also didn't have ten Poirot sequels already in mind.

This is surely especially true of Mrs Oliver, who first shows up as a minor character in the Parker Pyne story "The Case of the Discontented Soldier", written in the early 1930s. I don't think Christie knew then that she would go on to write seven novels featuring this character, one of which has her as the sole detective. The evolution of Mrs Oliver (who acquires her first name, Ariadne, in her first novel length appearance) is fascinating, therefore. She grows and changes to meet the demands of each new novel that Christie wanted to put her in, rather than being a fixed personality that is slotted in, ready made, to new stories.

In the latest episode of Shedunnit, I've gone more deeply into the form and function of Ariadne Oliver in Christie's mysteries, and looked at the relationship between creator and character. Ariadne is often described as being a stand-in or self-insert for Agatha Christie herself. But is that really true?

Let's take a look at the full Ariadne Oliver canon.

Cards on the Table (1936)

This is a clever piece of formal experimentation that puts me in mind of some of Anthony Berkeley's 1930s detective fiction. An eccentric host invites four people he suspects of having got away with murder and four detectives to his house for dinner and cards. By the end of the night, he is dead, stabbed by one of his guests. Who did it? The personalities at the party, as revealed by their bridge playing, is vital to the solution of the case. It's something of a detecting super-group, with Christie bringing together four detectives she had used separately in other works: Hercule Poirot, Mrs Oliver, Colonel Race and Superintendent Battle. I like this book both for its cunningly-handled murder scenario and because it sets up what was to become a close and long-term relationship between Mrs Oliver and Poirot.

Mrs McGinty's Dead (1952)

After leaving Mrs Oliver in stasis for 16 years, Christie brought her out to act as a secondary to Poirot in this village mystery about the brutal murder of a cleaning lady. She is there by coincidence, not design, being introduced as an acquaintance of one of the households. She is working on a stage adaptation of one of her novels with someone who lives there — a reflection of the fact that Christie herself was also moving more into theatrical writing in the early 1950s.

Dead Man's Folly (1956)

This time, it is Mrs Oliver who calls in Poirot, but not initially to investigate a murder. She is staying at a country house (Greenway in disguise) and has been asked to create a murder mystery treasure hunt for the village fête. She is feeling uneasy about the process, but can't quite put her finger on why — a Mrs Oliver trademark. Certain aspects of her mystery are being changed as if someone is manipulating her for their own nefarious reasons. Not long after Poirot joins her, the murder mystery game becomes a real murder and we get to see Mrs Oliver in a more active sleuthing role. I especially like the evolution of her much discussed "women's intuition" from earlier stories. We see how seriously Poirot takes Mrs Oliver's feelings that something is not right in this book.

The Pale Horse (1961)

This is the only full-length novel in which Mrs Oliver appears without Poirot. She is consulted by the book's narrator, Mark Easterbrook, about another murky suspicious circumstance that may or may not be criminal: the possibility that a group of creepy women living in an old pub are running a magical "assassination to order" business. Through Mark's eyes, we get to see some of Mrs Oliver's creative process for her fiction and we learn that she had written 55 novels and counting. She gives him good advice about confronting evil. This book is also a key crossing-over point in the Christie canon. One of the characters from Cards on the Table recurs as a way to connect Mrs Oliver to the social circle and the area where the Pale Horse pub is. Also based here is the vicar's wife Mrs Dane Calthrop, who appears in 1942's The Moving Finger as the person Miss Marple is staying with while investigating poison pen letters in Lymstock. Thus, this novel confirms that Poirot and Marple exist in the same fictional universe, since via Mrs Oliver they now have a friend in common. I highly doubt that Christie thought or cared about such a detail, but I enjoy thinking about it.

Third Girl (1966)

This is a less successful crime novel (Christie tries to write about drugs and youth culture, topics that don't suit her) but we still get some good Mrs Oliver moments, such as her request to Poirot that he be the guest speaker at the "Detective Authors' Club" annual dinner, thereby confirming that she is a member of a Detection Club equivalent. Christie, by the way, was the president of the real-life Detection Club when she published this novel. This book also contains some good examples of Mrs Oliver's compassion, particularly for girls and young women, and perhaps my favourite sequence hers of all, where she briefly turns shoe-leather detective and trails a suspect across London.

Hallowe'en Party (1969)

These days, I think people mostly read this book for the seasonal vibes rather than the mystery, which is probably as it should be. The opening chapter where Mrs Oliver is helping out at her friend's children's Halloween party is lovely. The book is interesting for the scholar of Ariadne Oliver, though, because as in Dead Man's Folly she has to confront the fact that her presence might have precipitated an until-then theoretical murderer into taking practical action. Once again, Mrs Oliver summons Poirot onto the investigation, confirming that their connection remains close and strong 35 years on.

Elephants Can Remember (1972)

My overwhelming feeling about this book is that it is very sad. Its subject matter is deeply tragic — more so than the average Christie mystery — and its thematic focus on ageing and memory is melancholy, too. Mrs Oliver wrestles (as Christie probably was too, four years before her death) with feelings about being an old woman, the world having changed around her, and not being able to rely on her own memory as she once did. I don't love this novel or yearn to re-read it often, but as I looked at it again for this episode I came to see it as a fitting conclusion for a character who had spanned so much of her creator's career and become a vessel for many of her own preoccupations.

I hope you'll enjoy listening to this episode — Agatha and Ariadne — and I'll be back with you next Wednesday with our monthly reading recommendations.

Until then,

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,

For the final Shedunnit episode of 2025, I am asking all six of the guests who joined me for Green Penguin Book Club episodes this year to take a nostalgic look at the place the series has in their own lives. In particular, I asked them to remember what their first Green Penguin encounter was. We talked about everything from the joys of the Puffin Club to the fun of coming across unknown titles in bookshops.

As several of them pointed out in the discussions you'll hear in this new episode, the Penguin series is often an early way of discovering new titles and authors for a young reader. As long as you aren't after rare titles or first editions, secondhand Penguin paperbacks tend to be pretty easy and cheap to come by. Plus, you have the guarantee that somebody knowledgable back in the day thought the book was worth republishing, even if it isn't very well known today.

What was your first Green Penguin? Do you remember? I think mine was a loved-to-death copy of The Labours of Hercules by Agatha Christie, a short story collection I have always loved because it was among the first mysteries I ever read.

I went looking in my own Green Penguin collection to see if I had any of the books my guests named so that I could show them to you, with mixed results.

I do have The Plague Court Murders by Carter Dickson (aka John Dickson Carr), which Tom Mead named as one of his most prized Penguins:

And I also have The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, which Sergio Angelini talked about (even though I have — gasp! — yet to actually read it):

But otherwise I drew a blank on their specific titles! I do have some others by authors they named, though, such as this Margery Allingham, another favourite of Sergio's:

Plus this book by J.J. Connington, which I think is brilliant:

Lastly, I pulled out my slightly battered copy of The Documents in the Case by Dorothy L. Sayers and Robert Eustace, because that's going to be the subject of the next Green Penguin episode in January:

I will see you in two weeks for the start of a brand new year of Shedunnit! I think you're really going to like the first episode I've got lined up...

Until then,

Caroline

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're finishing strongly, with a mixture of classic literature, fantasy and, of course, crime fiction for you.

If you're interested in more reading content from us, I'll be doing my full round-up of every book I've read on my personal newsletter at the end of December — you can sign up for that here. Leandra is also talking about what she's read this year and her reading goals for next year on her YouTube channel.

Caroline Has Read: The Mystery at Orchard House by Joan Coggin

In December 2024, the Shedunnit Book Club selected as its monthly book Who Killed the Curate? by Joan Coggin. Both the book and the writer were brand new to me, and so was the series detective, Lady Lupin. I found this village Christmas mystery delightful, with the ditzy debutante Lupin simultaneously settling into her new role as an ordinary vicar's wife and trying to solve the murder of her husband's unpleasant curate.

I was thus very pleased to see that Galileo Publishers had this summer republished another of Joan Coggin's four Lady Lupin mysteries: The Mystery at Orchard House. This one was originally published in 1946 and is set on the eve of World War Two, three years after her marriage. This time, Lupin is not in her home village, but staying at a hotel in the Kent countryside for a two-week rest cure after being ill with influenza. She's there in spring, when the daffodils and apple blossom is out, so I think this would be a nice book to read at that time of year (we talk of summer mysteries and wintry/Christmas ones, but how many other seasons are represented?). Of course, during Lupin's stay at the hotel — which is run by an old friend who recently inherited it as a manor house and is now Making It Pay — she is drawn into the detection of crime via several petty thefts and an attempted murder. She's as scatterbrained and disorganised as ever, but remains charming and a fundamentally moral person, making her a good figure to follow through the mystery. The plot probably wouldn't win any awards for great originality or innovation, but since I tend to care more about quality of writing, character and setting anyway, this did not trouble me.

I'm taking part in Kate Jackson's "Reprint of the Year" awards this year, and this is the second of the two titles that I'm proposing for the prize. (The first was Not To Be Taken by Anthony Berkeley, read my thoughts on it here.) Do head over to Kate's blog and vote for it if you also enjoyed The Mystery at Orchard House this year! Joan Coggin is exactly the kind of writer I would never have discovered if it weren't for Galileo's republication of her mysteries, and I am very grateful to them for putting it out.

Caroline Will Read: The Documents in the Case by Dorothy L. Sayers and Robert Eustace

This is the next title coming up in the Green Penguin Book Club series! I'm looking forward to re-reading this co-written epistolary mystery (especially after doing a whole episode about this format, Death on Paper, earlier in the year). It's Sayers' only full-length novel not to feature Lord Peter Wimsey and the only one that she worked on with someone else. The episode will be out in the second half of January, so that's your deadline if you're reading along with me.

Leandra Has Read: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

This was my first time reading Northanger Abbey. A friend gifted me a copy not long ago, and what finally motivated me to pick up this classic was the upcoming 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth. She was born on the 16th of December 1775, sharing a birthday with my father actually! Unbeknownst to me at the time of reading Northanger Abbey, this title was celebrating an anniversary of its own. Five months after Austen's death in July 1817, her brother and literary agent, Henry, published Northanger Abbey and Persuasion in a single volume in December of that year.

Catherine Morland was an absolute delight, and I loved the brief moments in which the narrator breaks the fourth wall to address the reader throughout our heroine's adventure. The book's tone reminded me of I Capture the Castle and Arabella, two other titles I have thoroughly enjoyed in the past. The most fascinating element of Northanger Abbey for me, however, was its rocky journey toward publication. Initially, it seemed as though it would be Austen's first published work, sold to Crosby & Co in 1803 for £10. The London bookseller proceeded to sit on the manuscript for over a decade as Austen published Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, and so on. In 1816, the bookseller sold the book back to Henry for the amount they originally paid Austen, and the author jumped immediately into revisions. She died before she was able to finish the novel to her exact liking, but I would rather have some version of this story than none at all! It's officially my favourite Austen to date.

Leandra Will Read: A Tangle of Time by Josiah Bancroft

In December, I always have the goal of ending the year strongly with as many "easy win" reads as possible. That leads to a lot of mood-reading! Recently, my mood led me to start the sequel of Josiah Bancroft's fantasy mystery novel, The Hexologists, and it feels wonderful to be back with this sleuthing couple, Isolde and Warren Wilby. This time around, Is and War are investigating the mysterious death of an artist who reached out to Is not longer before she died. I'm excited to see just how much of the art world we see in this mystery. If you enjoy fantasy mysteries like The Witness for the Dead or the Sherlockian reimagining The Tainted Cup, then I highly recommend you add The Hexologists to your TBR. Hopefully I will be able to say the same for its sequel!

That's us for now! What are you planning on reading over the next few weeks? If you get some downtime over the festive period, do you line up a particular kind of book, or just see what you might receive as gifts? Let us know by replying directly or by leaving a comment to join the conversation with other readers.

Until next time,

Caroline

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