A Century of Whodunnits

Shedunnit

Caroline Crampton

Arts, Books

4.9 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2021

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Reading through the twentieth century, one murder mystery at a time. Find more information about this episode at shedunnitshow.com/century. The ten books I talk about are: — The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (1905) — Trent's Last Case by E.C. Bentley (1913) — The Cask by Freeman Wills Crofts (1920) — The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers (1934) — Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie (1943) — Death in Captivity by Michael Gilbert (1952) — From Doon With Death by Ruth Rendell (1964) — Death of an Expert Witness by P.D. James (1977) — Appleby and the Ospreys by Michael Innes (1986) — Black and Blue by Ian Rankin (1997) Other sources: — The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books by Martin Edwards — Bloody Murder: from the Detective Story to the Crime Novel by Julian Symons There are no major spoilers in this episode, but the opening plot scenario of each book is discussed briefly. There is a major spoiler for the Sherlock Holmes story "The Final Problem" from 1893. NB: 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). Blackwell's is a UK independent bookselling chain that ships internationally at no extra charge. Find a full transcript of this episode at shedunnitshow.com/centurytranscript. Thanks to today’s sponsors. You can get $5 off mail based Victorian mystery game Dear Holmes at dearholmes.com/shedunnit using code "shedunnit" at checkout. The audiobook of Laura Ruby's Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All is on a special deep discount through May, and you can find that through your audiobook retailer of choice. 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, 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. Music by Audioblocks and Blue Dot Sessions. See shedunnitshow.com/musiccredits for more details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Something I love about making this podcast is the space it provides for me to zoom right in.
0:11.7	I can dedicate a whole episode to a single motif from classic detective fiction.
0:17.6	Whether that's a trope like the Butler did it or a setting like on a boat.
0:24.0	I've narrowed the focus even further by putting a time limit on the books that I cover.
0:29.8	They largely come from the golden age of detective fiction. That period between the two world
0:35.6	wars when what we now think of as the classic who done it was at the height of its popularity.
0:42.4	And while I have no intention of setting aside this approach,
0:46.1	something has been annoying at me for a while. It's this question.
0:50.4	What would it look like if I zoomed out instead of in?
0:55.6	What if instead of tracking the development of the golden age detective novel within that short
1:01.2	time span? I considered the broad strokes of the murder mystery across the whole century.
1:07.4	Well, that's what I'm going to do today. We're going on a journey from 1900 to the year 2000.
1:14.3	This is the 20th century, according to its who done it.
1:26.8	Welcome to She Done It. I'm Caroline Crampton.
1:30.8	It's now been a century, at least, since the first who done it from the golden age of
1:43.9	detective fiction were published. I spend a lot of time reading the books that were published
1:49.3	during that two decades or so, because I love seeing the development of the classic who done
1:55.2	it up close, and also because I make this podcast. I know that round numbers are meaningless,
2:01.6	but I can't help it. Noticing that a hundred years has passed since some of my favourite
2:07.1	books from the early 1920s were first released has had more of an impact on me than when it was
2:12.6	just 99 years or 98. There are still so many books from that time that are new to me
2:19.4	that it's easy to forget that they are now objectively quite old.
	...

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