Clued In Conundrums 3

Transcript

Speaker: Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke. And we both love mystery. Hi, Brooke. Hi, Sarah. I'm so excited for another round of Clued in Conundrums and basically for the ah excuse to hang out with some really great friends.

Speaker: This is going to be so much fun. So before we introduce our friends, let me just introduce the premise of what we're doing. So when ah we were researching our Ellery Queen episode from a few seasons ago, i came across a radio broadcast called Author Author, and it was a game show style radio program.

Speaker: hosted by Ellery Queen and Ogden Nash. It was a huge hit with audiences and what happened was on air, a mystery scene was presented and guest authors were challenged to come up with clever explanations for the crime. And so we thought we could restart that, call it Clued-In Conundrums. And Brooke, do you want to introduce our authors?

Speaker: I would love to. First, we have Regan Davis. Regan Davis is a pen name for the real author who lives in the suburbs of Toronto with her husband, two kids, and a menagerie of pets. When she's not planning the perfect murder, she enjoys knitting, reading, eating too much chocolate, and drinking too much Diet Coke.

Speaker: She's an established knitwear designer who has contributed to many knitting books and magazines. Colleen Cambridge, also known as Colleen Gleason, is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling and award-winning author. She's written everything from vampire hunters to dystopian romance to steampunk, historical romance, and mysteries with a supernatural flair or a historical setting.

Speaker: All of Colleen's books feature strong heroines experiencing fast-paced adventures, danger, mystery, and of course, romance. Colleen lives in the Midwest United States with her family and two dogs and is always working on her next book.

Speaker: Manon Wogan is a publishing professional with a love for fictional murder. Manon reads, reviews, and works with books. Her blog, The Clues Letter, is dedicated to author interviews, book reviews, and the occasional gift guide.

Speaker: Welcome everyone. Hello, it's so great to be back. We're very excited about this, even though we're very nervous about this.

Speaker: Well, thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to it. I listened to the previous episode and it was it sounded really fun.

Speaker: I'm sure that this will be lots of fun as well. So in our version, listeners will hear some of today's mystery authors create a story plot from just a little bit of prompting. Our authors are given the crime and a few basic facts. Their challenge is to create a logical beginning and ending and to tell us what tale of intrigue or misadventure lies behind the mystery.

Speaker: Their stories are unrehearsed and the twists are entirely their own. No one, not even me or Brooke, knows where the stories will go. So listen for the clues, sharpen your powers of deduction, and join us for another round of clued-in conundrums.

Speaker: Brooke, do you want to introduce today's story? Yes. So here is your scenario, authors. It's entitled The Missing Groom.

Speaker: The wedding of social media influencer Penelope Hart and wealthy tech mogul Graham Blackwell is the event of the summer. More than 200 guests have gathered at the historic Rosewood Estate to celebrate.

Speaker: The guests are seated. The flowers are perfect. The string quartet is playing and playing and playing. But the ceremony cannot begin because the groom is nowhere to be found.

Speaker: At first, everyone assumes it's a case of cold feet. A search party of groomsmen fans out across the estate, checking guest rooms, gardens, and terraces.

Speaker: Twenty minutes later, Graham Blackwell's body is discovered inside the estate's honeymoon suite. He's alone. The door is locked from the inside. Resting on his lap is a single long-stemmed red rose and a handwritten note that reads, It can't happen.

Speaker: All right. So we're very anxious to see what explanation you have for this situation. ah Is there someone who would like to go first? Okay, I will.

Speaker: First, I'm gonna start by saying I never plot my books out ahead of time. So I usually discover whodunit as I go. But I think in this case, it's pretty obvious that it was the wife who did it and she poisoned him.

Speaker: She found out he was cheating on her. She's also a social media influencer. So she's gonna make it dramatic, whatever she does, because she wants to use it, right? So she finds out he was cheating on her. So she opens she she vapes, she opens up her vape,

Speaker: pours the contents into what he likes to drink, which is just fizzy water, and says goodbye to him in the in his little hotel room, knowing that he is going to get on the phone and have a sexed Zoom call with his lover before he goes down to to marry her. And, of course, he's got to lock the doors so nobody comes in on this little Zoom sex call. But she knows he's going to do this and drink this... um concoction that has vape in it which is pure nicotine which will kill you almost instantly now as far as the rose and the note goes i'm thinking that came from the sexting partner and that's how she found out what happened so she might put it near him on the bed i'm not sure how it got on his lap maybe he picked it up because he had the rose and he had the note in his hand while he was doing the sexting because he knew that his lover was upset so he was trying to make her feel better oh this is just for looks this marriage blah blah blah that's all i got

Speaker: I love it. It's perfect. That's so great. Yes. right. Let's hear it, Manon. Here is what you need to know about Graham Blackwell. He was a jerk. You don't make as much money as he did by being a good person. Graham Blackwell screwed over for everyone he ever knew at one point or another. And guess what?

Speaker: All of them were at his wedding. But remember, more than 200 guests are already seated and waiting for his entrance. But who wasn't seated yet? The wedding party.

Speaker: Now, this was a really large wedding, but it was a small wedding party. They had a maid of honor, a best man, and the officiant. And even though these were the closest friends to the couple, they also had reasons to resent the groom.

Speaker: The maid of honor who knew that Graham Blackwell had too many affairs to count was being blackmailed into keeping it a secret. The best man was an ex-business partner who Graham Blackwell ousted from their co-founded startup 10 years ago and who claims that it's all water under the bridge, but his grudge is obvious.

Speaker: And the officiant, Graham Blackwell's younger brother who has been secretly in love with Penelope for years. When no one could find the groom, the three members of the wedding party went off to search the Rosewood estate.

Speaker: The officiant was the first person to reach the honeymoon suite. He rattled the doorknob and shouted, it's locked. Together with the best man, they broke down the door to find the body.

Speaker: What he didn't realize was that the maid of honor noticed the way he only pretended to try the door. She saw that he had faked it and was immediately suspicious. When questioned by the authorities, the officiant broke down in tears and confessed.

Speaker: As the victim's brother and his only next of kin, the officiant stood to inherit his entire fortune. And of course, that would change after the marriage. So he drugged his brother and staged a suicide, complete with faking a door locked from the inside, making it look like Graham Blackwell felt extraordinarily guilty for cheating on Penelope.

Speaker: The officiant hoped to inherit the money and lend a shoulder for Penelope to cry on, but he ended up in jail instead.

Speaker: Excellent, Manon. Well done. so we've got a theme going here. It's always about cheating.

Speaker: It's always also the person closest to the groom. All right, Regan, let's hear your take. Yeah. So leading up to the ceremony, the groom finds a note in his jacket pocket instructing him to go to the honeymoon suite and lock the door behind him. It's a suggestive note promising a wedding night preview if he follows the clues in the room for the scavenger hunt.

Speaker: Assuming that the note is from his wife-to-be, he does as he's told. He enters the room. He closes the door. He locks it behind him. He sees the rose, he picks it up and is pricked by the thorn, which unbeknownst to him is laced with bee venom, which he's allergic to.

Speaker: He reaches for the EpiPen in his pocket, but it's not there. I guess whoever put the note in took the EpiPen out. So it's too late and he dies. So who did it? So my um my suspects were the wife, the business partner, um the beekeeper on the estate who thinks that um all of these events are bad for her bees and hurting the environment. And the killer is maid of honor Penelope's sister.

Speaker: who's insanely jealous of her influencer's sister and who believes that she should be marrying the tech mogul because when they met on this very estate at a fundraiser two years before, Penelope spelt red wine on her dress, making the sister have to leave to change, during which she cozied up to the tech mogul and they became a thing.

Speaker: So good. These are all so good. And while, you know, we did say there's like kind of a theme here, they're all still so different. And I think that is the most fun about ah this project is that we get to see kind of a glimpse behind the scenes of how you guys think about it and how you build your build your stories. So that was really great.

Speaker: and Yeah, thank you. Well, I think this was so much fun, Brooke. We should do another round with our authors. So do we have another scenario for them?

Speaker: Absolutely. This one is entitled Murder at Mermaid Cove. Mermaid Cove, an exclusive tropical resort, is sold out for the long holiday weekend. Throngs of beachgoers have convened to enjoy the sun and surf and tour the area's famous geological sites.

Speaker: Just after sunrise, a jogger discovers the body of a well-known rockhound, Finn Cooper. He's lying in the sand near the base of an old lighthouse. There are no footprints leading to or from the body.

Speaker: First responders assume that he jumped in despair. The night before, his fellow vacationers had watched as his fiancée threw her engagement ring at him and stormed away. Yet, on closer inspection, an important clue points to murder.

Speaker: Regan, do you want to go first this time? So Finn and his fiancee argued because she's so fed up with his rock collecting hobby. And she really thought that this was an escape for them to have a romantic weekend away when it turns out it was a guise for him to hunt for more precious minerals and fossils and things at the seaside. She realized what he was up to when she caught him sending texts to his best friend, paleontologist, saying that he'd made the find of a lifetime and was sending photos to this guy to to get his opinion on the thing that he found on the rocks in front of the lighthouse.

Speaker: When they find him, his clothing is torn and police go upstairs and realize that they find strips of his clothing by the windowsill in the lighthouse, which... would have come off when he went through the window. So he definitely went through the window. However, it can't be suicide because the windows closed.

Speaker: So there's no way Finn jumped and closed the window behind him. So my suspects are the fiancee, who's angry about his rock hounding and threw her ring away. a local sea dog who's really tired of tourists coming and messing up their lovely waterfront. And another rock hound who's local to the area and territorial and does not want Finn around.

Speaker: But who did it? The paleontologist's best friend. He did it because when he saw the the pictures from Finn, he realized that this, hang on, it has a name. It's called a tribulite, a tribulite, which is like an old fashioned fossilized insect, was rare and valuable and would make his career and earn his living on the speaking circuit and make him an expert.

Speaker: He'd agreed to come into town the next day to look at it for Finn. But what he actually did was snuck into town the night before. Met Finn, took the thing from him, deleted the text messages from both phones, not knowing the fiance had seen them, and pushed Finn out a window to keep him quiet.

Speaker: And then showed up the next day pretending to just be going out for a jog and was actually the guy that found the body.

Speaker: That one is very well thought out. Well, both of them were well thought out, Reagan, but like, I almost see that as a future Reagan Davis book right there. Maybe throw in some knitting. Yeah, maybe.

Speaker: ah Manon, Colleen, which one of you wants to go? I can go. Finn Cooper hunts for rocks as a hobby, but he's also a scientist specializing in geology, which is why when he hears a strange call coming from the top of the abandoned lighthouse late one night, he assumes there is a person there who might need help.

Speaker: With a full moon hanging low in the sky, he follows the voice. It reminds him of that of his fiancé, who still isn't talking to him. He doesn't see why it was such a big deal. it was a joke. Obviously, his work wife is nothing like a real wife. They are just close friends.

Speaker: His fiancé doesn't seem to see it that way, even on vacation. Finn Cooper climbs the steps of the lighthouse until he finds himself in the cupola. He looks around for the source of the call.

Speaker: He sees no one. Now the scientist questions what he once thought was fact. Did he really hear a voice? Why did he come up here? If Finn had grown up in Mermaid Cove long before the exclusive resort made it into a tourist hotspot, he would have heard the legend of the siren, the reason why the lighthouse was abandoned long ago.

Speaker: According to the legend, the siren was a mermaid who fell in love with the lighthouse keeper, and she gave up her tail to be with him. But he scorned her, and upon her death from a broken heart, she became a ghost living in the lighthouse. But instead of warning sailors when they were close to shore, she lured them to her until they crashed on the rocks. It is the siren who lures Finn Cooper to the top of the lighthouse.

Speaker: He goes outside onto the widow's walk and stands still, bewildered, the warm breeze whipping through his hair. He doesn't see her ghostly figure come up behind him. He simply feels a brush of cool air so soft and light.

Speaker: And then he is falling, the sandy ground coming up quickly to meet him. The next morning, no one knows what to make of the heartbreaking sight, but Finn's fiancé looks up, and just for a moment, she sees the silhouette of a woman against the cupola.

Speaker: She blinks, and the woman is gone. Oh, that's chilling, Manon. i love that. ghosts murder us? I love it. I love ghosts. We needed a paranormal twist today, so that was great. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Speaker: All right, Colleen, let's hear your solution. Okay, so yeah, I don't really have a full solution. But what I do know is we do have Finn on the ground by the lighthouse. Everybody assumes he jumped because his fiance broke up with him and he was heartbroken.

Speaker: but there's a clue that suggests that maybe he didn't jump and that is the smell of bitter almonds around his mouth when they find his body which means cyanide which is also a very quick acting poison i have a theme going here apparently but you know quick acting poisons are very helpful and they don't leave a mess so um my thinking is someone one who has it in for finn who is also a chemist of some sort because they have to be able to get cyanide in its pure form easily-ish. It's not as available now as it used to be way back in the 40s, 50s when I write these books. um

Speaker: So I'm thinking it still is his fiance because she's pissed at him. She's probably a chemist and she found out he was screwing around on her as, you know, He does because he is a rock hunter. He's a climber. He's probably really hot.

Speaker: But maybe he was fooling around with her on a guy which really upset her because that would be worse than him fooling around with her, fooling around on her with a woman. So she makes it look like suicide, except, and of course he's going to meet her at the lighthouse because he thinks she wants to, I guess I'm making this up as I go. which I guess is the point.

Speaker: He wants to meet her at the light. He agrees to meet her at the lighthouse because he thinks they're going make up. And instead she gives him something to drink with cyanide in it, maybe champagne, which Agatha Christie did in sparkling cyanide. And she makes sure he's standing near an open window. He doesn't go through the glass because that would be too loud. I think people would hear that. He goes, she has a window open at the lighthouse and it's very romantic. And he drinks the champagne and he thinks they're going back together. She confronts him about life.

Speaker: lover who's another rock climber who they go on bro trips together all the time. And as he's falling from dying from Sinai, from choking, cause they don't breathe. She's like, farewell, dude.

Speaker: I don't know. That's all I got. think it's great. Yeah, I do too. Yeah. I, I love, like you said, Brooke, that we just get these very different interpretations, uh, and, and solutions to,

Speaker: ah a few sentences that, that kick off these stories. And I think each of them could get developed into, into very different books. Absolutely. Yeah, they're all beginnings of of the process. And whether you're more of a discovery writer like myself or Colleen, or you love to plot like Reagan, and I think Manon probably falls into that category too, judging by like the scenarios she's come up with, these are going to morph and grow and could definitely become full-fledged mysteries. This has been great.

Speaker: Yeah. So thank you, each of you for joining us on our clued in conundrums and playing our game with us. So before we sign off, why don't each of you share where listeners can find you? So, Reagan, I will start with you.

Speaker: ah You can find me at reagan davis.com. My books are all available on Amazon as Reagan Davis. And I hang out on social media as Reagan Davis. Fabulous. Thank you for inviting me to play. It was fun.

Speaker: Colleen.

Speaker: um you can find me at Colleen Cambridge.com. I also write as Colleen Gleason. So you can find me on social media as both Colleen Cambridge and or Colleen Gleason because I was Colleen Gleason long before I was Colleen Cambridge, which made it tough when I had to establish a new name. So I just keep everything under Gleason mostly. And my books are available pretty much everywhere. Also any you know, libraries, bookstores, Amazon, um, indie bookstores. They're most of them are on audible and, um, other, um,

Speaker: audiobook vendors. I mean, you can find them pretty much anywhere. Great. And Manon? You can find me on multiple social media platforms at mysterymanon, M-A-N-O-N. m a n o n That's Instagram, TikTok, and also YouTube. And you can go to link in my bio and find out even more, including my newsletter, The Clues Letter, and my new book club, The Red Herring Book Club.

Speaker: Fabulous. So yeah, thanks again for joining us. And we hope you consider joining us for another Clued in Conundrum. Thank you very much. This was a lot of fun. And thank you for joining us today, listeners.

Speaker: But until next time, I'm Brooke.

Speaker: And I'm Sarah. And we both love mystery.

Speaker: Clued in Mystery is written and produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers. If you liked what you heard, please consider telling a friend, leaving a review, or subscribing with your favorite podcast listening app.

Speaker: Visit our website to sign up for our newsletter, The Clued in Chronicle, and get mystery news, podcast updates, and bonus episodes. We're on social media at Clued in Mystery.