Dear listeners,

A few weeks ago I, along with a number of Shedunnit Book Club members, attended the Bodies from the Library conference at the British Library in London. It was a lovely day out, if rather warm, and one full of interesting detective fiction insights. If you survey the programme, you'll notice that several repeat Shedunnit guests were among those speaking!

It was one talk in particular that came to mind when I was deciding what to write you about today: Jake Kerridge and Moira Redmond's discussion of a "Golden Age Reference Shelf". Moira has helpfully posted the list of fifteen non-fiction books they talked about here on her blog — it encompasses Julian Symons, H.R.F. Keating and much more. There are some old favourites on there and others (Dilys Winn) that were new to me.

I wish I was organised enough to have a dedicated space for my non-fiction books about detective fiction, but I'm not. They are in a few different places around the house and when I have a sudden need for, say, a biography of Josephine Tey I dash around to all the possible shelves until I find it.

There are, however, three books from this golden age reference category that live permanently on my desk, and I thought it might be interesting to take a look at them together.

The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards

Although this is a very digestible book that can absolutely be read cover to cover like a novel, I use it all the time as a reference work. It contains a couple of very handy appendices: one showing the full list of pre-1950 Detection Club members and their dates of election, and another giving the original "rules" and Club oath. There's also an index of titles that is incredibly useful and a bibliography that has inspired many an episode.

The revised and updated edition that was published earlier this year for the book's tenth anniversary is a substantial expansion on the original, as you can see from their relative sizes below. I haven't yet had time to read all of the new sections front to back, but as I've been magpie-ing my way through via the index I've already encountered some fascinating new material. The new chapter about thriller writers was especially interesting given the conversation I had with Kate Jackson for the episode about The Man in the Dark.

Martin, of course, has been a regular guest on Shedunnit over the years (and you'll be hearing from him again very soon!). My favourite episode we've done together to date is "The Psychology of Anthony Berkeley" from 2020 because Martin is such a passionate and knowledgeable Berkeley fan.

Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks by John Curran

This magnificent work of scholarship was, I think, originally published in two volumes: "Secret Notebooks" and "Murder in the Making". I have this combined hardback edition and I very rarely talk about an Agatha Christie story or novel without checking its entry in here first.

The principal attraction of the book is that it contains Christie's own notes, organised chronologically by the publication dates of her stories and books. Thus, if I'm working on something that references Sad Cypress, say, I will take myself to Part III: The Third Decade and see what notes survive for that book. In addition to being able to see Christie's thought process on the page, the accompanying critiques that John Curran provides are excellent. He makes connections between books and contextualises what Christie was writing with what else was going on in her life. It wasn't until I started using this book, for instance, that I truly understood just how often she repeated the same plots!

Unlike The Golden Age of Murder, I do think this is a true reference book and I wouldn't consider it bedtime reading. It does contain some previously unpublished short stories, though, which are worth seeing.

You can hear John Curran talking about The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie in this Green Penguin Book Club episode from 2024.

Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul by Barbara Reynolds

Sayers has not been quite so well served by biographers as Christie. There are quite a few — I own at least five biographies of her — but they tend to come at her with a specific angle, whether through her translation work, her religious writing or her crime fiction. I have yet to read a really good, well-written holistic portrait of her. However, when I just want to know what Sayers was doing or thinking at any given time, I turn to this book by her friend and fellow translator Barbara Reynolds, which was first published in 1993.

Reynolds took on the work of finishing the translation of The Divine Comedy that Sayers left unfinished at her death and became the chairman of the Dorothy L. Sayers Society. She also edited the five volume series The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers (which I also have and like but which does not fit on my desk, it is very heavy all together).

I think Barbara Reynolds probably had the best access to Sayers' personal material in the late 20C and was the best-equipped to make sense of it. Her writing is rigorous and her tone is warm without being overly sycophantic. It's not a long or comprehensive biography, but it amply covers all the bases and I dip into it often when I'm working on anything that mentions Sayers.

Barbara Reynolds sadly died in 2015 when this podcast was but a twinkle in my eye. However, I think you can feel the influence of this book most strongly in "The Advertising Adventures of Dorothy L. Sayers" episode from 2023.

I hope you find some reading inspiration there, or perhaps some ideas for sources for your own detective fiction related research. I'd be happy to write about other reference works I rate again in future if readers find it interesting.

In these in between-episode newsletters, I thought I might start giving a hint, for those who enjoy puzzling out clues, about the subject of next Wednesday's new episode via a book title. This time, I suggest that you might like to take a closer look at Death on the Down Beat by Sebastian Farr...

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,

It's Green Penguin Book Club time again! And we have reached the tenth crime, or green, title in the original Penguin series: The Man in the Dark by John Ferguson.

My copy is a 1952 reprint, by the way — I certainly don't have "full collection of first editions" money.

I had never heard of this book before I embarked on this reading project. That's one of the things that attracted me to doing this, actually. As well as getting to revisit some well-loved classics like The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L. Sayers and The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie, the requirement to read all of the Penguin crime titles in order brings me into contact with some books that were popular in their day but have long since rather faded from view. The Missing Moneylender by W. Stanley Sykes from earlier this year was definitely one of those and The Man in the Dark is another.

This book was first published in 1928 and joined the Penguin series in July 1936. It introduces a regular detective character for Ferguson, the Scottish private investigator Francis McNab, and also provides us with the first glimpse of a recurring Watson in the Fleet Street journalist Godfrey Chance. It's told in four "acts" that vary in format between third person narration, first person account and a witness statement. It straddles the divide between thriller and detective fiction.

As for what it's about, this summary from the inside cover of my edition does a rather good job of explaining:

That reads: "Murder on a foggy night at Ealing in the presence of a down-and-out who couldn't see the crime; a long car drive taking two people to hide for a while in the country; pursuit by journalists; a blind man's love affair; the criminal's escape finally and dramatically prevented. These are the ingredients of a part-mystery, part-adventure story which describes with equal brilliance and from both angles the problems of the hounds and the dodges of the hares."

I hope that has whetted your appetite for the episode, if not for the book itself!

So who was John Ferguson? He wasn't a member of the Detection Club, nor did his ten crime novels foster him a reputation that lasted much beyond his death in 1952. He is an intriguing figure, nonetheless — an episcopalian minister from Perthshire in Scotland who lived all over the place, including in Guernsey and in Kent, and who wrote popular plays about Scottish history as well as crime fiction.

You might be slightly more familiar with one of his 1930s novels, Death of Mr Dodsley, because it was republished a couple of years ago by the British Library Crime Classics series. I reviewed this bookshop-based mystery in the most recent edition of our reading recommendations newsletter (I liked the setting but thought the pacing was off). I wanted to read another Ferguson title and Dodsley was the only one that I found to be readily available.

By the end of our discussion, my guest Kate Jackson (of the excellent Cross Examining Crime blog) and I had decided that, although we might not go rushing out looking for more John Ferguson books, we still felt curious about his work.

In her review of one of his other novels, Night in Glengyle, Dorothy L. Sayers expressed herself more taken with his pure thrillers than his novels of detection. She wrote that "in the excitement of the chase your reviewer quite forgot to be cunning and was properly taken aback by the surprise-packet at the end". I think I might like to try one of those and see if I feel the same.

His Guernsey-set novel Death Comes to Perigord also intrigues me, partly because I am curious about the place and partly because this was the book that enabled Ferguson to make the advantageous move from his previous publisher to the Collins Crime Club. Surely this means the book has some interesting features? If you have read this or any of his others, do let me know how you found them. You can reply to this email or leave a comment on the website.

The next book to get the Green Penguin Book Club treatment will be Penguin 78, Trent's Last Case by E.C. Bentley. Look out for that episode in September!

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,

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 we should read next or thoughts about any of the books we mention after perusing the below, please do let us know.

Caroline Has Read: The Death of Mr Dodsley by John Ferguson

As I noted in last month's recommendations newsletter, the next title in the Green Penguin Book Club series is The Man in the Dark by John Ferguson from 1928. That episode will be coming out next Wednesday, 9th July, if you are eagerly anticipating it! The Death of Mr Dodsley from 1937 was the only other Ferguson novel that I could find in an easily-accessible edition (it was republished by British Library Crime Classics in 2023) so I read this as part of my preparation for the episode.

There lots of things to like about this book. It has a dramatic opening scene in the Palace of Westminster, as MPs are enduring an all night sitting of the House of Commons and waiting for an important vote on a key amendment. Meanwhile, at a secondhand bookshop on the Charing Cross Road, a bookseller named Mr Dodsley is being murdered while a drunk toff is giving two patrolling police officers the runaround on the street outside. There's even a cat that uncovers a key clue and a hand drawn map of the bookshop! All great fun.

Where this book fell short for me was in its pacing. After this promising start we spent what seemed like a very long time with a rather dull police inspector as he questions all the workers in the shop one by one, and this frankly felt repetitive and rather redundant. The narrative momentum improved again later on as Ferguson's recurring sleuth Francis McNab was able to take more initiative in the case, but to my mind the book never wholly recover from its slow middle section. A mixed experience, then, although reading this book has inspired an idea for another episode of the podcast that I hope you will get to hear in August.

Caroline Will Read: The Feast by Margaret Kennedy

In July, the Shedunnit Book Club has chosen to read a novel with a hotel or resort setting and picked this story set in a fading hotel on the coast in Cornwall in 1947. I had never heard of it before a member proposed that we read it, so I'm excited to get stuck in and find out what Kennedy did with this premise. All I know of her is that in 1924 she made a big splash with a book called The Constant Nymph, but given that more than two decades separate that from The Feast, I'm not assuming that they will have a lot in common.

Leandra Has Read: The Album by Mary Roberts Rinehart

Last month, I promised to report back on my first experience with the "American Agatha Christie", aka Mary Roberts Rinehart. Originally published in 1933, The Album opens with the residents of Crescent Place discovering that one of them has been axed to death. The mystery becomes ever more twisted as more victims are slain one after the other.

Admittedly, I entered the novel with some apprehension! A friend of mine recently abandoned The Album, giving up halfway through it. Not to mention, I'm always suspicious of any comparison to Agatha Christie. And yet, I was pleasantly surprised. The conclusion to the mystery plot is outlandish, but I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the world through protagonist Louisa Hall's eyes. She is both sheltered and restricted by Crescent Place, a cul-de-sac impervious to the societal progress occurring outside these five Victorian mansions. In my mind, the murder mystery came second to her coming-of-age journey, as she discovers that she has options beyond a suffocating future at Crescent Place under her mother's thumb.

This slow burn mystery is nothing like any mystery by Agatha Christie that I have read, and readers will be disappointed if they enter it expecting this. With that said, I enjoyed the pacing, the many moments of humor, and Rinehart's observations on the changes to society and gender roles in the early 20th century.

Leandra Will Read: The Case of the Missing Maid by Rob Osler

This is the first in a new historical mystery series following junior detective Harriet Morrow in 1898 Chicago. Inspired by Kate Warne, the first female detective in the United States, Harriet applies for an open position at the Prescott Detective Agency in the Windy City. To everyone's surprise, she is not only hired as a probationary junior detective, but she receives her first case. Pearl Bartlett, owner of one of the most extravagant mansions on Prairie Avenue, believes her maid has been the victim of a kidnapping. No one else is willing to take this woman's claims seriously, and if Harriet can't get to the bottom of this missing person's case, her future at the Prescott Agency is at stake.

The Case of the Missing Maid is the selected read for another book club of which I am a member, and it has already received some early high praise from others members in the group. My mood has been drawing me to historical mysteries lately, which makes this the perfect next book for me. It also follows a queer main character sleuth, so even though Pride Month has just come to a close, there is never an "off season" for reading diversely!

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. 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

Links to Blackwells are affiliate links; if you make a purchase at this retailer the price remains the same for you but the podcast receives a small commission for referring you.