Five and a half years ago I tracked down and read an obscure novelette by long-forgotten British pulp writer James Ronald, which set me on the trail of his far-from-readily-available other works. This week, Moonstone Press published the first two in a series of reprints that will see Ronald’s entire criminous catalogue made available, and series … …

Another year, another Bodies from the Library collection — incredibly, the sixth — and another opportunity to sit down with Tony Medawar and talk about the wonderful work he’s doing on all our behalfs. As well as discussing the contents of the latest collection — all spoiler-free, of course — we get into the details … Continue reading In GAD We Tru…

The return of my In GAD We Trust podcast, and a welcome return for Alasdair Beckett-King, comedian and now children’s author. Since last appearing on the podcast, Alasdair has written two books for younger readers — Montgomery Bonbon: Murder at the Museum (2023) and Montgomery Bonbon: Death at the Lighthouse (2023) — and so joins … Continue reading…

One final dive into the crystal-clear waters of talking about a mystery novel without having to carefully avoid the details — here are Brad, Moira, and myself discussing Mrs. McGinty’s Dead (1952) by Agatha Christie. There’s much to discuss here, too: an older Hercule Poirot whose name conjures none of the delight or fear it … Continue reading Spoi…

Hopefully your summer heatwave — or winter freeze-wave — has passed and you’re calm, relaxed, and ready to listen to Brad, Moira, and me discuss some Agatha Christie in spoiler-filled detail. This time we’re talking about Towards Zero (1944), the fifth and final book to feature Superintendent Battle. Is there much to discuss in advance? … Continue …

A long weekend (probably) awaits, so how better to pass some time than listening to Brad, Moira, and me discuss Five Little Pigs, a.k.a. Murder in Retrospect (1942) by Agatha Christie? Okay, sure, there are countless better ways to pass the time, but here’s that discussion anyway. Earlier this year, I held a poll for … Continue reading Spoiler Warn…

All good things come to an end, and so does my podcast; started in the first UK lockdown and hard to justify now that lockdowns are well and truly over, In GAD We Trust’s 30th episode (number 29, but don’t forget that bonus run through the Jonathan Creek canon) is going out in a blaze … Continue reading In GAD We Trust – Episode 29: Writing The Red…

There is a Golden Age of detective fiction going on at the very moment, but because most of what’s being written is aimed at 8-to-12 year-olds, it gets overlooked by, like, grown-ups. I’m trying to raise awareness of this with my frequent Minor Felonies posts, and it’s partly in pursuit of this aim that I’m … Continue reading In GAD We Trust – Epis…

Slightly later than planned — er, sorry about that — let’s see what Brad, Moira, and I made of Dame Agatha’s After the Funeral, a.k.a. Funerals Are Fatal (1953), shall we? You hopefully know the drill by now, but let’s have a recap for anyone new to this: we read the book, we discuss the … Continue reading Spoiler Warning – After the Funeral, a.k.a…

Last week, Nick Cardillo and I discussed the impossible crime on screen, at the end of which he casually asked about Jonathan Creek like I’d be able to condense my thoughts into a pithy bon mot and not obsess about what I’d missed out for the next 30 or 40 years. Instead, we’re back to … Continue reading In GAD We Trust – Bonus Episode! The Highs a…

Does In GAD We Trust have a hype train? If so, stoke the conductor, point the rails, wake up the boiler, and do other train things, because episode 27 is here and Nick Cardillo wants to talk about the impossible crime on screen. Written down, the impossible crime — sometimes called the “miracle problem” when … Continue reading In GAD We Trust – Epi…

I’m as surprised as you to see a new episode of my In GAD We Trust podcast, especially as I said on Thursday that there was unlikely to be one this weekend — well, okay, perhaps a I’m little less surprised than you, since I (sort of) planned, recorded, and (sort of) edited this, but … Continue reading In GAD We Trust – Episode 26: The Maxims of Mis…

Gutsy of me to suggest, on my site dedicated to the discussion of Golden Age detective fiction, that a lot of the terminology used to talk about these stories is incorrect, eh? Well, thankfully I’m not the one trying to convince you; that job falls to Mr. Scott K. Ratner. Those of you who know … Continue reading In GAD We Trust – Episode 25: Fair P…

Prepare yourself for what might just be the most jam-packed episode of In GAD We Trust to date — when you sit down with Tony Medawar, there’s always going to be a lot to talk about. With the podcast coming to an end after episode 30, I was hardly going to let Tony get away … Continue reading In GAD We Trust – Episode 24: Bodies from the Library 4 (…

Here we go: another Agatha Christie-centred, spoiler-filled discussion betwixt Moira, Brad, and myself, this time looking at her highly-regarded Jane Marple mystery A Murder is Announced (1950). You know the drill — we’ve read it, talked about it without being coy regarding details as one normally would in a review, and are here to pick … Continue …

The companion of the fictional detective — the “stupid friend” as Ronald Knox styled them — is something I have spent far too long thinking about, mainly because the protoype is always taken to be Sherlock Holmes’ chronicler Dr. John H. Watson. Joining me this week to discuss why that might not always be a … Continue reading In GAD We Trust – Episo…

After the interruption to the schedule of two weeks ago, here’s another In GAD We Trust podcast — and given the topic of ‘Making a Good First Impression’ it’s only fitting to welcome returning guests Sergio and Brad. We had orignally intended to discuss Ellery Queen, but life is miserable enough at the moment and … Continue reading In GAD We Trust …

The detective fiction genre is built around the essential structure of a crime, an investigation of that crime, and the revelation of the guilty party who committed the crime, and good heavens didn’t the Golden Age map out a lot of different ways to walk that path. And there are few people better placed to … Continue reading In GAD We Trust – Episo…

Slightly later than promised — or not, depending on your time zone — here’s the long-anticipated spoiler-heavy discussion betwixt Brad, Moira, and myself about Agatha Christie’s bridge-centric mystery Cards on the Table (1936). And, just for added drama, one of us thinks this book doesn’t quite deserve its reputation as a classic… As well as … Cont…

In January of last year, I read my first R. Austin Freeman novel, little suspecting that it was to be the first step along a road of sheer delight. And so, to mark the end of Series 2 of In GAD We Trust, today I’m discussing Freeman and the Thorndyke stories with author and fellow … Continue reading In GAD We Trust – Episode 20: The Dr. Thorndyke S…

On the back of the Reprint of the Year Award run by Kate at CrossExaminingCrime, I thought it might be interesting to see what those of us who submit titles for that undertaking would choose to bring back from the exile of being OOP. To that end, I invited various bloggers to nominate a single … Continue reading In GAD We Trust – Episode 19: Reissu…

For a blog set up with the implicit aim to explore the impossible crime in fiction, it has to be said that impossibilities have been rather thin on the ground at The Invisible Event of late. Here, then, is a podcast episode committed to the impossible crime (or one-tenth of it, at least) with author … Continue reading In GAD We Trust – Episode 18: …

You voted for it, here it is: a spoiler-filled discussion betwixt Brad, Moira, and myself about Agatha Christie’s none-more-audacious The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926). You have hopefully figured out that there will be much in the way of spoilers, so ensure you have read the book before listening in — it means you stand … Continue reading Spoiler …

After watching detective fiction play out in the drawing rooms of ivory towers for too long, I’m heading into the mean streets to get some grease under my nails, a shiv waved in my face, and probably a cosh to the back of my head. Thankfully, Sergio, who oversaw a great deal of this stuff … Continue reading In GAD We Trust – Episode 17: The Hardboi…

Let’s get the new year off to a happy start by showing some appreciation for contemporary authors who make life difficult for themselves by upholding the traditions of Golden Age detective fiction in their own works. And, if you want to discuss modern detective fiction, few are better-placed than Puzzle Doctor, a.k.a. Steve from In … Continue readi…

‘Tis the season to be jolly, so I’m delighted to welcome Kate from CrossExaminingCrime back to my Golden Age detective fiction podcast so that we can discuss those who have sought to be not quite so jolly about our chosen enthusiasm. The notion of criticising criticism flouts the very conventions of logic and reasoning upon … Continue reading In GA…

We’re all prone to speculate at times about how wonderful it would be to discover a previously-unpublished work by a beloved Golden Age author, and for today’s podcast episode Tony Medawar rejoins me to tempt you with two forthcoming collections of hard-to-find material from two of the genre’s titans — John Dickson Carr and Freeman … Continue readi…

This year’s celebrations of the centenary of Hercule Poirot’s debut and, arguably, the dawn of the Golden Age of Detection have obviously been overshadowed by wider events, but there’s still much to celebrate — not least of which is a new book about Poirot from Mark Aldridge. Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the … Continue readin…

You thought this podcast was nerdy before? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Today we welcome the GADisphere’s own Scott K. Ratner, and things get taxonomical… Scott is at the top of my list of GAD fans who I wish would start a blog so we could find all his writings in one place because, as … Continue reading In GAD We Trust – Episode 12: Appeal and Dece…

No, Christmas isn’t for another two months, but it’s been a tough year and so here’s a gift to get you through the darkening days (yes, thank-you, the Southern Hemisphere…): Brad and Moira discussing The Murder at the Vicarage (1930) by Agatha Christie. And I’m there, too, of course. You can’t win ’em all. Having … Continue reading Spoiler Warning …

The time has come again for some nerdy Golden Age Detection podcasting, and James Scott Byrnside is here to oblige with a discussion about some of the tropes we know and love from GAD fiction After all, if you’re gonna have a discussion about tropes in detective fiction, you might as well have it with … Continue reading In GAD We Trust – Episode 11…

A final (for now) podcast episode before I head off on hiatus, this time discussing the idea of genre with author Ryan O’Neill. This was going to be the first episode of a loose series on the theme of genre…and, I suppose, it still is, it’s just that that second, third, and fourth episodes will … Continue reading In GAD We Trust – Episode 10: Genre…

A podcast episode a couple of months short of 100 years in the making, we are here today to discuss The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) by Agatha Christie. To celebrate a century since the start of detective fiction’s Golden Age — no, Trent’s Last Case (1913), you stay out of this — myself, Moira … Continue reading Spoiler Warning – The Mysterio…

A seam of superb Japanese detective novels and short stories have crossed the language barrier in recent years, teaching even the most culturally ignorant of us to tell our honkaku from our shin honkaku. And here to give us a sense of the work involved in making that happen is literary translator Louise Heal Kawai. … Continue reading In GAD We Trus…

Today was due to have been the sixth (sixth!) Bodies from the Library conference at the British Library but, for obvious reasons, it’s not. I can’t, alas, give you a whole day of GAD-based discussion, but I can at least fill an hour with someone from that line-up of exceptionally knowledgable people, Tony Medawar. Perhaps … Continue reading In GAD …

This week on my Lockdown Podcast In GAD We Trust, the cream of G.K. Chesterton’s stories about his crime-solving Roman Catholic priest as selected by John who blogs at Countdown John’s Christie Journal. It went like this: John earmarked his ten favourite Father Brown stories, I read them, and we picked through their finer points, … Continue reading…

It’s long been a tenet of mine that detective fiction and comedy have a great deal in common, and to pursue that this week via the medium of podcasting I’ve enlisted the help of comedian Alasdair Beckett-King. In a conversation ostensibly about the parallels between detective fiction and stand-up comedy we also manage to cover … Continue reading In…

As the COVID-19 pandemic rolls into its 348th week, Brad from AhSweetMysteryBlog is here with some salutary advice. See, back in March, Brad made a great case for the approaching crisis and enforced isolation being the perfect circumstances in which to read some mystery fiction, and he’s here today to expand upon that theme and … Continue reading I…

Lockdown rolls on, and so does my GAD-focussed podcast, which this time around sees me picking the brains of John Norris who blogs at Pretty Sinister Books and is surely one of the most widely-read members of our GAD coterie. This episode sees us discussing the utilisation of magic in crime fiction, from its slightly … Continue reading In GAD We Tr…

Here we go again, podcast time! And this week I’m joined by President of the Detection Club and recent recipient of the Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger, Martin Edwards. Of course, Martin has been involved in the gamut of crime and detective fiction over the years, so conversation had to be restricted to just a … Continue reading In GAD We…

Another week in lockdown, another episode of my new “hopefully this will distract you” Golden Age Detection podcast, In GAD We Trust. Today I’m joined by Aidan of Mysteries Ahoy! who, having made something of a study of the inverted mystery on his blog, suggested them as the topic for this episode. In order to … Continue reading In GAD We Trust – E…

You’re stuck at home, you’re bored, you could really do with a new, Golden Age Detection-focussed podcast to help pass the time, eh? Let’s hope so, because today you’re getting the first episode of my latest undertaking: a Golden Age Detection-focussed podcast called In GAD We Trust. With so many people being at home, and … Continue reading In GAD …