Tag Archives: 20 Rules for Writing Detective Stories

The Butler Did It

Snobbery and murder, all served up perfectly for you on a silver tray.

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NB: There are spoilers in this episode! Please check the list of books mentioned below and come back later if there are any titles there for which you don’t want to hear any major plot details. Consider yourself warned!

Books and sources:
The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rineheart
The Door by Mary Roberts Rineheart
20 Rules for Writing Detective Stories by S.S. Van Dine
“The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual” by Arthur Conan Doyle
“The Strange Case of Mr Challoner” by Herbert Jenkins
Something Fishy or The Butler Did It by P.G. Wodehouse
“Why do we think the butler did it?” by Nate Pederson in the Guardian
“Should we be concerned by the limitless popularity of period dramas?” by Caroline Crampton in the New Humanist
“Historians, Social Scientists, Servants, and Domestic Workers: Fifty Years of Research on Domestic and Care Work”, International Review of Social History, Volume 59, Issue 2, August 2014 , pp. 279-314
Snobbery with Violence by Colin Watson
Death and the Dancing Footman by Ngaio Marsh
The Mysterious Affair At Styles by Agatha Christie
Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers
Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie
Black Coffee by Agatha Christie
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
Why Shoot a Butler? by Georgette Heyer
Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers
A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie

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Music by Audioblocks and Blue Dot Sessions. See shedunnitshow.com/musiccredits for more details.