Shedunnit Caroline Crampton

Nothing could bad could possibly happen here, the inhabitants of the peaceful English village say to each other. Until the first poison pen letter arrives.
No major spoilers about clues or endings in this episode. However, there is some mention or discussion of the books listed below. Also, be aware there is a very brief mention of suicide.
Books and sources:
—The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie
—“The Lernean Hydra” in The Labours of Hercules by Agatha Christie
—Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers
—Policemen in the Precinct by E.C.R. Lorac
—The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters by Enid Blyton
—Overture to Death by Ngaio Marsh
—Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
—Poison in the Pen by Patricia Wentworth
—Details of the James Forster poison pen case in Manfield, Yorkshire
—"The Poison Pen Letter: the Early 20th Century's Strangest Crime Wave" by Curtis Evans
—Fear Stalks the Village by Ethel Lina White
Thanks to today’s sponsor, Backblaze. You can get a 15 day free trial at backblaze.com/shedunnit.
To be the first to know about future developments with the podcast, sign up for the newsletter at shedunnitshow.com/newsletter.
The podcast is on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram as @ShedunnitShow, and you can find it in all major podcast apps. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss the next episode. Click here to do that now in your app of choice.
Find a full transcript of this episode at shedunnitshow.com/poisonpentranscript.
Music by Audioblocks and Blue Dot Sessions. See shedunnitshow.com/musiccredits for more details.

The original golden age of detective fiction in the 1920s followed on from a devastating global pandemic. Is it any wonder, then, that we've read so much crime fiction in 2020? And why do we find murder mysteries a comforting choice for Christmas?



This festive season if you'd like to support the podcast and buy a gift for a murder mystery loving friend at the same time, you can purchase a discounted gift subscription for the Shedunnit Book Club at a href="https://shedunnitshow.com/giftoffer

I've read a lot of Agatha Christie, but I've never read all of her books in order. What insights are there to be had by doing so? Christie completists Catherine Brobeck and Kemper Donovan of the All About Agatha podcast join me to talk about the Queen of Crime's clever way with characters, the "stuck in its time" elements of some of her plots, and how they rank her novels from best to worst.



This festive season if you'd like to support the

Is it still worth reading a whodunnit if you know... who done it?



Thanks to my guests Jim Noy of The Invisible Event and Kate Jackson of Cross Examining Crime. Jim is on Twitter @invisible_event and Kate is @ArmchairSleuth.



Thank you to everyone who supported the a href="https:

To get to the bottom of why the Nile is a murder mystery location that has bewitched readers for decades, I decided to talk to an author who has just published an Egypt based whodunnit: Robin Stevens. We talk about how she finalised the plot of Death Sets Sail  while on a Nile cruise, what it was about 1930s Egypt that held such a fascination for white British writers,  and why the boat in Agatha Christie's Death on the

The day the First World War ended, 11 November 1918, marked the beginning of a new era in which detective fiction would flourish. How did Britain go from "peace at last" to "whodunnit"?



Thanks to my guest (and husband) Guy Cuthbertson. His book about Armistice Day is Peace At Last and he’s on Twitter as @guywjc.



The Shedunnit Pledge Drive/