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Caroline: Welcome to Shedunnit I’m Caroline Crampton.
I’ve made a lot of episodes of Shedunnit — this is the 152nd, actually, but whose counting. And almost all of them feature me talking, sharing my research and opinions about the golden age of detective fiction. But I’m very aware at all times that I’m just one half of the conversation. I’m very lucky to have a large contingent of extremely well-informed and friendly listeners, and I get a steady trickle of messages commenting on the subjects I’ve covered on the show. But only I get to experience these follow-on discussions, so I thought it would be a good idea to collect all of this new information together. None of them is long enough for a full episode alone, but together I think they make for a nice little grab-bag of detective fiction facts, albeit ones that aren’t related to each other. Consider this a collective update, or an appendix, to everything that Shedunnit covered in 2024. Notes, queries, corrections, thoughts — they’re all here.
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We began the year with an episode titled “Whodunnit Centenary: 1924”, in which I read ten books from the last century. I began with The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie from 1924, and then read a book a decade, from 1934, 44, and so on, until I finished with Tana French’s The Secret Place from 2014. For 1984, I read the final Mrs Bradley book by Gladys Mitchell, The Crozier Pharaohs, and compared it to Postern of Fate, the final novel written by Agatha Christie. I said that I was pleasantly surprised by how good Mitchell’s book was, given how disappointing I found the Christie. Some listeners disagreed with me, though, and let me know how much they like Postern of Fate. Layla, commenting in the Shedunnit Book Club forum, made a particularly good point about the book’s thematic discussion of ageing, I thought, saying:
“I wasn’t keen the first time round but read it a second time and got a lot more out of it. I like the discussion of childhood books, but I also enjoyed it as a discussion of getting older, and how Tommy and Tuppence have to stop rushing about in the same way they used to, but are still wanting to have an adventure – I particularly like Tuppence riding down the hill on that child’s toy! I definitely found on the second read I thought a lot more about ageing, and I suppose Christie was thinking about that too. I love Tommy and Tuppence and really like that in each book you see them get older and develop.”
I also said in that episode that I would update listeners on what book I read from 2024 that I felt belonged to my Whodunnit Centenary project. It now being the end of the year, I feel like I can do that, and I think I’m going to give the nod to The Examiner by Janice Hallett. As many of you will know, Hallett made a big splash in 2021 with her debut crime novel The Appeal, which was presented as a series of “documents in the case” rather than as a continuous fictional narrative, so the reader has to piece together the story themselves as they read emails, text messages, transcripts, and so on. The Examiner is also in this style, focused on the students and academics involved in a postgraduate art course. I think this book caps off my list perfectly because it is, in some ways, harking back to something that was very popular in the puzzle-obsessed days of the golden age — Dorothy L. Sayers and Robert Eustace, after all, published a book just like this in format in 1930 titled The Documents in the Case. But in other ways, via its use of modern technology and chronicling of modern life, Janice Hallett’s book feels very of the moment, of 2024. I think it perfectly encapsulates the recent trend for contemporary crime fiction to incorporate “vintage” feeling elements.
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The next episode, back in January 2024, was “A Reading Life”, in which Shedunnit production assistant Leandra and I discussed our reading habits and our reading goals for the year. One thing we mentioned in particular had listeners intrigued, and it was Leandra’s experiments with so called “immersive reading”. This involves reading a book while also listening to the audiobook of the same title, so as to fully embed yourself in a text with little opportunity for distraction from the outside world. Over in the Shedunnit Book Club forum, Danny made the case for a different kind of immersive reading, suggesting finding music that suits a book’s era or location to listen to while reading it. A quick search on Spotify usually turns up something relevant, and this can really help create a more immersive reading experience, he said. Great tip!
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Now we come on to an episode that I remember mostly as the culmination of weeks of frantic reading: “Lucy, Anthony, and Anne” from March, for which I tried to read as many of Anthony Gilbert’s seventy plus novels. I corresponded with lots of listeners who were delighted to finally have the dots joined between the various names they had encountered: Lucy Beatrice Malleson, author of the autobiography Three-A-Penny, was the same person as Anthony Gilbert, creator of detectives Arthur Crook and Scott Egerton, and the same person again as Anne Meredith, author of the wonderful 1933 Christmas thriller, Portrait of a Murderer. I especially appreciated Mark’s comment that he enjoys episodes where it is audible that I have a real affection for the author I’m talking about (which I really do, in Gilbert’s case, I love her work) while not shying away from saying that some of their books are better than others. Also true, as the Shedunnit Book Club discovered in November when we read Death in Fancy Dress by Anthony Gilbert and I found it by far the least enjoyable book by Malleson that I have ever read.
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A big event in the world of Shedunnit this year was the launch of a new strand within the podcast: Green Penguin Book Club. This is a series within the show that documents my journey of reading and discussing every crime or green title from the main Penguin series, in order. In this first year I have read the first six titles, beginning with The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L. Sayers. In May, it was the turn of The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie, and for this episode I was joined by Christie expect John Curran. As we were critiquing the book, both John and I felt that it was rather crowded with detectives — beyond Hercule Poirot himself, there are three other police and judicial officials involved, and it felt to us rather unnecessary to the plot.
However, I have been educated marvellously on this point by listener Jo, who even went to the trouble of consulting a law professor colleague to bring us accurate information. I’m going to read her message in full because I think it bring fascinating context both to Christie’s novel and the level of research that went into it. Jo says:
“I think this is an accurate rendering of French criminal procedure, where – notably – the “juge d’instruction” (here M Hautet) rather than waiting for the prosecutor to bring a case to trial, actively directs the investigation. This is the continental European “inquisitorial” system in action, very different from the adversarial system which most people (from jurisdictions with English origins) will be familiar with.
In this system, there is:
- the juge d’instruction is a “juge rapporteur” who in serious cases questions the defendant and the witnesses, collects the evidence together, and prepares a dossier (report) which is sent to the president of the trial court. In practice, used only in a small percentage of cases. (so in Murder on the Links this is Monsieur Hautet)
- France has, at national level, two parallel police force – the gendarmerie (under the direction of the Minister of Defence) and the police nationale under the direction of the Home Secretary). The first operates mainly in the country areas and the second mainly in the towns – but only the French understand exactly where the jurisdictional boundaries lie. The police nationale used to be called the “sureté” (in the book, this is Giraud). And finally there is
- A Commissaire de police, whois the head of the relevant police force for a middling-sized town or a sizeable area of the countryside. (In Christie’s novel, this is Bex)
So it seems that Agatha Christie did her research in to the French judicial system rather thoroughly, and I must eat my words about her novel being needlessly cluttered with police and officials. Jo also made the very valid point that Christie’s 1942 novel The Body in the Library is also rather stuffed with police characters, containing as it does Chief Constable Melchett, Superintdented Harper and Detective Inspector Slack, as well as a retired officer, Sir Henry Clithering. And that’s not even including Miss Marple, the main detective protagonist of the book. The Murder on the Links is both accurate and relatively underpopulated by comparison.
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Sticking with the green penguins for a moment, I wanted to highlight the outpouring of support that came for my third green penguin book club instalment from June, which was about The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett. Lots of listeners were absolutely delighted to hear me talk about hardboiled detective fiction at last, after over five years of this podcast. But the real love was for Hammett’s characters of Nick and Nora Charles, who appeared in this book and then in a series of six films. Helena commented that while the intended humorous side of these characters didn’t really come across for her on the page, on the screen, their interpretation by actors William Powell and Myrna Loy really made them come alive. Helen also noted that a past Shedunnit Book Club monthly read, Murder’s A Swine from 1943 by Nap Lombard, contains what could be read as a British take on a Nick and Nora style duo. Agnes and Andrew Kinghof are another fun-loving central couple who spend a lot of time drinking, and there’s even a mention of The Thin Man film in the book. In addition, Nap Lombard was the pseudonym of a husband and wife writing team, Gordon Neil Stewart and Pamela Hansford Johnson, which just squares this little circle rather nicely.
After the break: pulling out all the stops for the most comment worthy Shedunnit episode of them all.
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Earlier this year, as I contemplated making a Shedunnit episode entirely about the many and varied appearances of the pipe organ in detective fiction, I resigned myself to the notion that this one would just be for my satisfaction — there was no way listeners would find this subject as interesting as I do. But I was extremely wrong about this. “Instrument of Death” from August, which is all about pipe organs in detective fiction, is one of the most popular episodes of the year, and has certainly prompted the most correspondence. I can’t tell you how delighted I am that there are so many other organ/whodunnit nerds out there in the world.
We have quite a few points to get to with this one. First, an update from me. I can’t believe I failed to mention in the episode the pivotal role that an organ and an organist plays in Edmund Crispin’s 1944 novel The Case of the Gilded Fly. A terrible oversight that I only discovered as I began to put together the more recent episode “Edmund Crispin’s Inside Jokes”. Of course, in that book, musician Donald Fellowes stars in one of the iconic organ-based scenes of all detective fiction, with the instrument itself used as a vital part of the plot. Organ-curious readers who haven’t picked up this book yet, I highly recommend it. And the organ’s inclusion in this, Crispin’s debut novel, shouldn’t be a surprise, since the writer had been playing the organ himself since his teens and worked as an organ scholar for a while at university.
Then I heard from Mark and Catherine Smith, an organist and soprano married to each other in Wisconsin, USA. They listened to my “Instrument of Death” episode together — very cute — and wanted to alert me to the existence of a column in the American Organist magazine that felt relevant. It’s been running for decades, and it covers intriguing deaths of organists, both from natural causes and possible murders. Catherine sent me some editions from the archive, and these articles have headlines like “ORGANIST KILLED BY BLOW”, “THEY DIED AT THE CONSOLE” and “NUNC DIMITTIS”. That last piece was a round up of famous organist deaths from history, and it included this one, which I wanted to share with you:
“On New Years’ Day, 1926, 65-year-old HENRY E. PARKER WELSH, honorary organist of Leck Church, Lancashire, England, went to church to practice. While starting a gasoline engine that drove a dynamo providing electricity for the church and organ, his coat caught in the crankshaft of the flywheel and he was drawn into the machinery.”
This feels a bit similar to the organ-mechanism sabotage around which E.C.R. Lorac based the plot of her novel The Organ Speaks. I have always wondered if the spark of inspiration for that book came from real life, and perhaps this story suggests a possible point of origin. Anyway, my profound thanks to Mark and Catherine for sharing this wonderful column with me, it entertained me no end.
Next, we hear from listener Kristin, who is a musicologist. She emailed me to tell me about a 1952 novel by Frank Vigor Morley titled Death in Dwelly Lane. This features a different “instrument of death”, as she explains:
“It’s kind of a convoluted plot involving a self-deprecating narrator heavily implied to be Prof. Moriarty’s nephew, a community music group as a front for a criminal organization in post-WWII Britain, and a Canadian oil millionaire who wants to go to Oxford. But the mystery that sets off the narrative involves a man seemingly found crushed to death by a double bass.”
Lastly, I want to share a contribution from listener Elizabeth, who is a history professor in the US. She writes:
“My own research concerns Agatha Christie’s relationship with her audience over the course of her writing career, and how that relationship played a crucial role in globalizing British mysteries. So I’ve been reading a lot of fan mail and thinking about what fanhood even means in different contexts. One exchange in 1964 between Christie and a fan put me in mind of your recent episode, “Instrument of Death,” especially the part of Christie’s reply that suggested she may even have thought of using the organ for such a purpose; the fan was an organist himself, and he had suggested an organ-related premise for a murder mystery oriented around church music. She replied with appreciation for both his idea and his organ skills:
“Although I used to play the guitar, the mandolin and the piano in my youth (and also sing in a high soprano!) I am lamentably ignorant of the organ. I have had a lifelong vendetta against the awful Cinema organs that used to rise up from the depths all in coloured lights—and one might perhaps have a colourful and well deserved murder there. But they are growing scarce nowadays—so perhaps you are right, and during the Festival processional hymn would be better! You never know—it may happen.”
“As we know, it didn’t. However, the exchange bore fruit in a different way: the fan was Gordon C. Ramsey, the American teacher and scholar of British literature who in 1967 eventually published Agatha Christie: Mistress of Mystery — the first book-length study of the Christie canon, which he wrote with Christie’s permission and input (giving it, in turn, weighty legitimacy with her fandom). I found this letter in Ramsey’s papers, which are housed at Yale.”
I am very sad that Agatha Christie never capitalised on this idea for an organ-based murder mystery, especially given her own high level of musicianship. But I am thrilled that Elizabeth went to the trouble of sharing this exchange with me, and all of you. I have truly never felt more seen through the making of this podcast than in relation to this one episode about organs.
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In the “Death at the Speakeasy” episode that I made with Leandra in July all about Prohibition in detective fiction, we ended with the fact that Arthur Conan Doyle was a big supporter of the outlawing of alcohol in the US and even said he would welcome such a law in the UK. Shedunnit Book Club member Gill was able to provide some biographical context for this enthusiasm from the Sherlock Holmes creator. He had personal experience of the terrible consequences of alcohol addiction from his own father Charles, who had to be institutionalised in 1882 owing to his problems with drinking. He eventually died in hospital in 1893, having developed untreatable epilepsy and a host of other health conditions.
Gill continues:
“It’s believed it left the remaining family sensitive on the subject and perhaps these sensitivities resulted in “The Adventure of the Cardboard Box” being withdrawn for many years after first publication in 1893. It wasn’t included in the first UK book of the Memoirs in 1893 (though it was in the 1894 American edition). It didn’t reappear in the UK until 1917’s book of His Last Bow.
“The Adventure of the Cardboard Box” is an unsettling Sherlock Holmes story that involves severed ears and a very unpleasant character with a drinking problem. Back to Gill:
Arthur Conan Doyle didn’t disown his father, though. He used some of his illustrations in a 1882 edition of A Study in Scarlet, used his artworks to decorate his first professional writer’s office in 1891 and organised an exhibition of his father’s art in 1924.
I knew very little about Arthur Conan Doyle’s personal life, so it was good, if sad, to learn about his father’s tragic decline.
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Now, a few more rapid recommendations and updates. John Smallwood got in touch through social media to react to the “In The Dentist’s Chair” episode from September, saying that a book called Hard Liver by Anthony Weymouth includes the “hollow tooth” murder method from a book I mentioned, Cornell Woolrich’s “Death Sits in the Dentist’s Chair” as a possible theory of the crime, but is then discounted as too far-fetched an idea. Thanks John!
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The fourth instalment in the green penguin book club series, all about Mr Fortune, Please by H.C. Bailey, brought a largely-forgotten detective character to the attention of plenty of mystery fans. Roderick, commenting on YouTube, echoed the sentiments of lots of listeners when he said that the Mr Fortune stories had made a pleasant addition to his reading line up. He also recommended one of the few Mr Fortune novels, Black Land, White Land, from 1937, which is fairly available secondhand in a 2008 paperback edition from Rue Morgue press. Mr Fortune fans, consider yourselves informed.
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This last one concerns the “Mysterious Knitting” episode from October, which was all about the parallels between designing knitting patterns and creating detective fiction, featuring the marvellous Kate Davies. Our update comes from Michelle, who had some intriguing etymological detail to add. She says:
“I’m not a knitter myself but it’s honestly fascinating how much terms from the fabric arts and crafts have woven themselves into our vocabulary. The word “text” itself, for example, is related to “textile” (from Latin texere “to weave”).
More specific to the vocabulary of mysteries, the word “clew” (now “clue”), of course, once meant “a ball of yarn” and via the myth of Theseus got its more current meaning. We “follow the thread” of an investigation. We are happy to be “strung along” during the “unravelling” of the mystery, but hope that all the “loose ends” will be sewn up in the end. Perhaps not before a “twist” has occurred. And certainly without any “stitching up” of innocents!
A whole new world of knitting-related words has now been opened up to me. Thank you, Michelle!
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And that’s all I have for this edition of Notes & Queries — I liked doing this, though, maybe we’ll make it an annual tradition. Many, many thanks to everyone who wrote in, commented, or otherwise contributed to the advancement of my knowledge about detective fiction. As it’s the end of the year and the season of looking back on all that has passed, I would like to say that I am very grateful to all of you who listen to Shedunnit, and I can’t wait to make more of it for you in 2025.
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This episode of Shedunnit was written, narrated and produced by me, Caroline Crampton. It’s the last one of 2024. But there are plenty more episodes that you’ve never heard before — all of the bonus material that I make just for the ears of the Shedunnit Book Club. Join now at shedunnitbookclub.com to hear them all.
Many thanks to Mathew Prichard and The Christie Archive Trust for permission to read from Agatha Christie’s letter to Gordon C. Ramsey.
Everything mentioned in this episode is listed at shedunnitshow.com/notesandqueries. I publish transcripts of every episode including this one; find them all at shedunnitshow.com/transcripts.
Shedunnit is edited by Euan McAleece. Production assistance from Leandra Griffith. Member support for the Shedunnit Book Club from CC McLoughlin.
Thanks for listening.
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