Cricket and Crime

Shedunnit

Caroline Crampton

Books, Arts

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 26 July 2023

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Why are crime writers so bowled over by the game? Thank you to my guests, Dr. Andrew Green and cricket statistician Andy Zaltzman. You can find more cricket-related content and news from Andy by listening to Test Match Special on BBC Radio 5, or via his podcast, The Bugle Ashes Urncast. Be aware: there are spoilers in this episode for the plot of Murder Must Advertise and non-spoiler details given about the other books listed below. Mentioned in this episode: — "The Adventure of the Priory School" by Arthur Conan Doyle, featured in The Return of Sherlock Holmes — "The Adventure of the Three Students" Arthur Conan Doyle, featured in The Return of Sherlock Holmes — Sherlock Holmes and the Birth of the Ashes by Arunabha Sengupta — Sherlock Holmes at the 1902 Test by Stanley Shaw — Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy L Sayers — Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L Sayers — The Clues of the Caribbees by TS Stribling — Blotto, Twinks and the Rodents of the Riviera by Simon Brett — Murder at School by James Hilton — "The Guilty Vicarage" by WH Auden — Alibi Innings by Barbara Worsley-Gough — Murder Isn't Cricket by E and MA Radford — The Amazing Test Match Crime by Adrian Arlington — The Test Match Murder by Alfred Tack — Death Before Wicket by Nancy Spain — Death Before Wicket by Kerry Greenwood — W.G. Grace’s Last Case by Willie Rushton — Test Kill by Ted Baxter Related Shedunnit episodes: — Murder on Holiday — Death Under Par — The Advertising Adventures of Dorothy L. Sayers 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 bookselling chain that ships internationally at no extra charge. 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. Find a full transcript of this episode at shedunnitshow.com/cricketandcrimetranscript. 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

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	There are many things to love about the stories that emerged from the Golden Age of Detective
0:08.9	Fiction. These mysteries from the interwar years have clever plots that engage with a complicated
0:14.9	set of rules, an insistence on fair play, strong recurring characters and a powerful sense
0:21.1	of narrative momentum that carries the reader towards a thrilling yet inevitable conclusion.
0:27.3	For many, there is also something quintessentially British, or perhaps specifically English about
0:33.0	this type of novel, from the settings to the characters to the social norms that they
0:37.9	display. The familiarity of some of these settings adds to the charm, too. We've talked
0:43.6	about the appeal of the country house murder mystery on the show before, and of course
0:47.4	there are also plenty that feature trains, ships, theaters and beautiful yet isolated
0:52.7	islands. But there is one scenario that intrigues me more than any other at the moment. It
0:58.3	too revolves around complex narratives, exciting conclusions, fair play and a lot of complicated
1:04.4	rules. It is extremely, almost sickeningly, English. The proverbial blunt instrument is also
1:11.1	an absolute necessity. It all makes me wonder. Just why are there so many cricket murder
1:17.7	mysteries?
1:27.0	Welcome to She Done It. I'm Caroline Crampton. This is the first part of She Done It's
1:31.7	Mysteries of Summer Trilogy, in which I'll be taking a closer look at how writers from
1:36.0	the Golden Age of Detective fiction incorporated the classic elements of an English summer
1:40.8	into the murder mystery. Today we're looking at cricket, but make sure you're following
1:45.0	the show in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss the next two installments.
1:58.5	Cricket has strong associations with the very best of the fickle English summer. It's reminiscent
2:03.6	of long afternoon spent lasing in the sunshine, picnicking and chatting while the satisfying
2:09.1	crack of leather against willow hints at the stately progress of a game underway somewhere
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Caroline Crampton, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Caroline Crampton and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.