History of Mystery
The Best Locked Room Mystery You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
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From the very first sentence…we are into the realm of nightmare. Miracles gather and explode. A dead man returns—or does not return. A flying ghost, apparently, swoops down and…
Killing the Rich: Why Privilege Has Always Been at the Heart of the Whodunnit
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For more than a century we’ve been addicted to a particular flavor of murder mystery story. A group of wealthy, upper-class people are gathered together in a country house….
Crime and the City: Monte Carlo
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How could there not be a lot of crime in Monaco – a tightly packed nest of wealth, sex and power all in the sunshine of the Riviera. Officially…
How Much Do We Really Know About Charles Dickens?
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The weather has been exceptionally mild of late but in this Christmas season every party demands a good blaze and good cheer. What with the fire and the punch…
A Cultural History of the Erotic Thriller
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The strip mall video rental store was an emporium of illicit dreams. Its doorway in the small town where I came of age, located in between candy store and…
The Secret History of John le Carré’s Career in the Intelligence Services
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‘People believe what they want to believe,’ wrote David to one of his lovers. ‘ALWAYS.’ he was referring to the ‘revelation’ that Graham Greene had continued working for British…
Dorothy L. Sayers and the Enduring Legacy of a Marriage of True Minds
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–Originally delivered as the Annual Speech (28 June 2023) for the Dorothy L. Sayers Society, edited. Exactly a hundred years ago this October, Dorothy L Sayers published Whose Body?…