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Clued in Conundrums
182 Plays18 days ago
Brook and Sarah are joined by three fantastic mystery authors: Sara Rosett, Trixie Silvertale, and Tom Mead to play some mystery fun and games. Based on Author, Author, a mystery game show created by Ellery Queen in 1939, our guests come up with solutions to a mystery scene... a Clued in Conundrum.
Discussed and mentioned
Author, Author featuring Ellery Queen
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Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers – www.silvermansound.com
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Order Life or Delft by Brook and Sarah
For a full episode transcript, visit https://cluedinmystery.com/clued-in-conundrums/
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Clued-In Conundrums'
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke, and we both love mystery. Brooke. Hi, Sarah. Today we are doing something completely different, and this came about from some research that we did on an earlier episode, and it's something that you came across, Sarah. Would you like to tell everyone about it?
00:00:33
Speaker
Sure. So as I was researching something for our Ellery Queen episode, I came across a it was a radio broadcast called Author Author, and it was a game show style radio program hosted by Ellery Queen and Ogden Nash.
Meet the Guest Authors
00:00:50
Speaker
It was originally only a replacement for the Screen Guild Theatre, but became a tremendous hit with audiences. And what happened in each episode was on air, a mystery scene was presented and guest authors were challenged to come up with a clever explanation for the crime.
00:01:07
Speaker
That's right. And so we have invited three past guests who have all been on our show for their own ah interview episodes and asked them if they would be game to try this out. And that's exactly what we're going to do today. So let me introduce our authors.
00:01:26
Speaker
First up, we have Sarah Rosette. Sarah writes mystery novels that are the bee's knees with delightful settings and intriguing puzzles. A fan of Golden Age mysteries and Jane Austen adaptations, she also hosts a podcast for readers, Mystery Books Podcast.
00:01:44
Speaker
Next in line is Trixie Silvertail. Best-selling author Trixie Silvertail grew up reading an endless supply of Lillian Jackson Braun, Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew novels.
00:01:55
Speaker
She loves the amateur sleuths in Cozy Mysteries and obsesses about all things paranormal. These two passions unite in her mini Paranormal Cozy series, and she's thrilled to write them and share them with you.
00:02:09
Speaker
And finally, we have Tom Mead. Tom Mead is a UK crime fiction author specializing in locked room mysteries. He's a member of the Crime Writers Association and the International Thriller Writers Organization.
00:02:23
Speaker
His series features magician detective Joseph Spector. So we want to give a huge welcome and thank you to Tom, Trixie, and Sarah for joining us today. Thank you.
00:02:36
Speaker
Glad to be here.
Rules of the Game
00:02:38
Speaker
I will introduce our game. And we've adapted this from ah the original opening of Author Author, but we've called it Clued-In Conundrums.
00:02:50
Speaker
Clued-In Conundrums is a game of story invention in which you will be able to hear how writers invent their story plot. The game starts with a little drama Florist Betty Bloom arrives at her flower shop to find the owner of Barry's Buds, a new rival to Betty's shop, dead inside her flower fridge.
00:03:09
Speaker
Not only had Barry just opened the rival florist shop, he'd recently purchased the entire block. Rumor had it he was planning to redevelop. Tensions in the neighborhood have been running high.
00:03:23
Speaker
And this is where our authors come in. Their part of the game is to create a logical beginning and ending. They've got to tell us what unusual tale of romance, sentiment, or intrigue lies behind this story.
00:03:37
Speaker
Their stories are unscripted, so don't mind if they stumble a bit. That's the idea of the clued-in conundrums.
00:03:45
Speaker
So who wants to go first? will.
00:03:50
Speaker
Wonderful. Take it away, Trixie.
Trixie Silvertail's Floral Mystery
00:03:53
Speaker
So I went with creating a ah town and a backstory. The town of Fletching Gardens holds an annual floral arrangement competition.
00:04:03
Speaker
And this competition is judged by the mayor, the ah president of the Chamber of Commerce, and a local eccentric millionaire who owns a massive estate with beautiful gardens.
00:04:17
Speaker
The winner of the floral arrangement competition is presented with a plaque and a key to the city, and they are also allowed to give a brief speech. So Betty Bloom has won the competition for the three years previous, and so her plan was to use her time in the spotlight when she wins again, of course, because she assumes she's going to win again, ah to seek support for preserving the historic downtown neighborhood, you know, fighting against these developers who are threatening to take away what makes their town quaint and unique.
00:04:49
Speaker
But knowing that Betty was the last holdout on the block and that she had heavily opposed his plans, Barry Buds snuck into her shop after hours to steal her arrangement for the competition.
00:05:02
Speaker
ruining her chances of winning. But unbeknownst to him, his partner, Chadwick Hedge was one step ahead of Barry. Chadwick had coated Betty's beautiful vintage metal picnic basket, which was what was holding her competition ah arrangement.
00:05:19
Speaker
He had coated it with a deadly layer of VX nerve toxin. So when Barry picked up the display in the cooler, and the cooler He was instantly poisoned and he died of asphyxiation in Betty's flower cooler.
00:05:36
Speaker
Bravo, Trixie.
00:05:42
Speaker
But that is so fun. I love I love where you took that. Thanks. Yeah, that was great. That was a fun little game. I love it. All right. So who's up next?
Sarah Rosette's Horticultural Tale
00:05:53
Speaker
I'll go. Take it away, Sarah. Okay. So Betty is horrified when she finds him in her fridge and she hadn't gotten along with Barry, but she respected him as a horticulturist and he grew many plants in his greenhouse that he had behind his shop and he sold those.
00:06:14
Speaker
And he was also a really savvy businessman. So she respected him for that. So she's horrified, but the police zero in on her, of course, because it was her shop and was is the main suspect because there was a very public heated discussion slash argument that she had had when she learned that he had been to the downtown ah courthouse and had looked at the plat maps of Green Valley um because he had brought a builder with him. And so she was, things were not going well.
00:06:47
Speaker
And so they know about that and they're not pleased. She's not pleased with that. um But Betty tells the police that Barry had arguments with a lot of people. He had a really hot temper and he had had an argument with the owner of the coffee shop, they nearly came to blows over parking spaces, that um he had accused the supplier, Ash, of giving the best blooms to Betty and sending him lesser grade flowers.
00:07:12
Speaker
His shop assistant, Bella, had stopped by and asked Betty if she had any openings. Things weren't going well with her and Barry. Betty didn't have any openings, but she had Bella fill out on job application.
00:07:25
Speaker
um And lastly, Barry was in the middle of a messy divorce. Betty knew his ex-wife, soon to be ex-wife, Daisy, from yoga class. um She had been very vocal about how she was not pleased with how the settlement was going.
00:07:40
Speaker
So everyone in yoga class knew about that. But the police aren't interested in these people. And so Betty discreetly investigates her suspects, but can't find anything that links anyone to the murder.
00:07:52
Speaker
But one day when she's browsing this Reddit sub-thread about plants, which she often posts, she sees a post about this plant called the Queen of the Night. And it's a flowering plant that only blooms nocturnally, and then it wilts before dawn.
00:08:07
Speaker
And the person who posted it says, this flower has a mutation, this special special one has a mutation, and it continues to bloom. So it blooms longer, something unusual, it's never been known before.
00:08:20
Speaker
And the handle on the account is Nightshade. And that just rings a bell for her. She can't figure out where she's heard that or why it rings a bell until she remembers where she saw it. And she goes and she looks at the employment applications that came in.
00:08:34
Speaker
And she looks up Bella's and it says Bella isn't short for Isabel, as she thought, but for Belladonna, which is another name for Deadly Nightshade. So she sends a message to this Deadly Nightshade account and they reply and say, you know, oh, you want more information about this flower?
00:08:51
Speaker
What's actually for sale for $500,000. So Betty does some more digging and she finds a link in the Reddit profile to a Facebook account.
00:09:03
Speaker
She goes and checks that out. There's no photo, but it does say that the person who owns that account is located in Green Valley. And so she's like, hmm, this is a little too much coincidence here.
00:09:14
Speaker
So she takes her discovery to the police and convinces them to set up a little trap, as Miss Marple would say. And when she goes to buy the plant, Bella arrives. But instead of leaving with money, she leaves in handcuffs.
00:09:31
Speaker
So she had found out she had seen this plant while she was working with Barry. And um She tried to steal it. Things didn't go well. They had a scuffle.
00:09:43
Speaker
She knocked Barry over and he had his head on the edge of a table and died. And she decided if she could put him in Betty's cooler, that would throw the suspicion off of her.
00:09:54
Speaker
And um that's kind of the back story I came up with. That's wonderful. That's so great. Yeah. I knew that this was going to be fun to see like how different the ideas were when you just have the same nugget to begin with.
00:10:10
Speaker
and and And it's proving to be true. and And we still have one more, which I'm sure will be even more different, which is Tom. So Tom, what did you come up with?
Tom Mead's Inverted Mystery
00:10:20
Speaker
Okay, right.
00:10:22
Speaker
So I came at this from a slightly different angle. I decided to do this as an inverted Columbo style mystery. So my culprit is known from the beginning.
00:10:33
Speaker
And it is, of course, Betty herself. She had the strongest motive to kill this sir property developer slash horticulturist who is buying up property and trying to run her out of business.
00:10:49
Speaker
But because her motive is so obvious, she needs a really foolproof way to kill this guy. And she decides to come up with a double, double bluff, if you like.
00:11:03
Speaker
So she is going to frame herself for a murder. And what she does is this. She starts a rumour around the town that she has come into possession of an incredibly rare orchid known as the Shenzhen Nongkei Orchid.
00:11:22
Speaker
Now this, if you're a horticulturist, you will know that that is the rarest and most expensive orchid in the world. And if you've read Susan Orlean's book, The Orchid Thief, or things like that, you'll know that the yeah underground orchid trade can get pretty cutthroat.
00:11:42
Speaker
And of course, our murder victim is up to his neck in that very trade. So she puts about this rumor that she has come into possession of this very rare orchid, which changes hands for upwards of $200,000 for a single plant.
00:12:03
Speaker
And she puts it about that she has got and a precious example of this orchid in the flower fridge in the back of her shop.
00:12:17
Speaker
And so she is setting herself up for ah this unscrupulous horticulturist to steal this orchid from her property.
00:12:32
Speaker
But what she has done is she has rigged a trap so that the flower fridge, which is... a walk-in flour fridge, because obviously it's large enough to conceal a body.
00:12:48
Speaker
But she has ah contrived a clockwork mechanical device which will, once the victim has entered the fridge, the door will seal shut behind him and he will eventually, overnight, suffocate in this flour fridge.
00:13:08
Speaker
the ah The flower, the orchid in question, is not a priceless Shenzhen Nongkei orchid. She has obtained a perfectly regular commonal garden orchid, and she has, with a ordinary house paint, she has painted its petals so that it resembles this incredibly rare orchid and set up for this guy to break in and to become trapped in the flower fridge.
00:13:39
Speaker
And when she arrives in the morning and finds him dead, she has removed the trappings from the outside of the flower fridge. And she has apparently been the victim of an ill-fated burglary gone wrong.
00:13:55
Speaker
Bravo. That was great. Everyone, you had such wonderful solutions to this conundrum. and And now I want to read these books.
Reflecting on Creative Approaches
00:14:08
Speaker
That was great fun. I love that. It was fun. And you said that, Sarah, like now you want to read the books. And I feel like um there's, we know this would likely happen, but I get ah a feel for each of these authors and the type of work that they do in their scenario. So it really is a peek inside the way these authors plot their books, I imagine.
00:14:33
Speaker
so Thank you for playing everyone. ah So I think this is a good time for each of you to share a little bit about what you're currently working on or your latest release ah so that, as Brooke says, our listeners can get to know you a little bit.
00:14:51
Speaker
ah So let's start with Trixie because you were you were first up for our tale.
Authors Share Latest Works
00:14:58
Speaker
Yeah. ah Let's see. On the September 30th, I have the third book in my Christmas Catastrophe Mystery series coming out, The Linser Cookie Murder.
00:15:11
Speaker
So that is ah a series that follows Santa's daughter on her ah exit from the North Pole. She doesn't want to deliver toys. she doesn't want to take over the family business.
00:15:22
Speaker
Her dream is to live in the human world and open a bakery. And so that's what happens in book one. And then of course there's a murder and she's a suspect and she gets drawn into it. And through the help of a human mentor and her Arctic Fox sidekick, who's really ah a wise elder that her father sent to kind of watch over her and and spy on her really, ah they have to solve the mystery and then they kind of build a friendship. And as the series goes on,
00:15:52
Speaker
additional murders continue to happen and they have to get involved. And this current one, ah someone is trying to kill Santa. And so she actually has to return to the North Pole and try to help her mother figure out what's going on. And of course, take over Santa's duties, the ones she never wanted to have to do.
00:16:10
Speaker
So I get to go back to the North Pole and the elves.
00:16:16
Speaker
Well, that sounds really fun. Thanks. Yeah.
00:16:21
Speaker
Sarah, what are you working on or what do you have coming up? Well, I have, um, the second book in a new series I'm working on coming out in October. And the, the book is called murder on the SS Cleopatra.
00:16:36
Speaker
And the series is about a woman, a lady traveler in the 1920s who goes to Egypt. The first book takes place in Cairo. This book is a cruise on the Nile and, um, inspired of course by death on the Nile and, um,
00:16:50
Speaker
Hopefully I've given it my own twist and have some interesting characters. She goes on this cruise and course someone dies and she has to solve the case. She has a traveling companion, an older woman named Hilde, who is lots of fun and kind of helps her sleuth along with some other people on the ah journey.
00:17:09
Speaker
And so it's a look at nineteen twenty s Egypt and the um British ah kind of like enclave as they travel through Egypt. Wonderful.
00:17:24
Speaker
And Tom? ah Well, I have very recently and in ah July, in fact, had the the latest book in my Joseph Spector mystery series published in the US s by Mysterious Press. That book is called The House at Devil's Neck.
00:17:45
Speaker
And And it's a it's a locked room mystery in the the kind of golden age vintage style ah that i that I really enjoy. And this time around, Spectre travels out to this this house of the title to take part in ah in a seance.
00:18:01
Speaker
So it's it's kind of a ah dark, spooky book that's set just on the cusp of the outbreak of the Second World War um and this supposedly haunted house where a yeah ah the ghost of a soldier supposedly roams the corridors.
00:18:18
Speaker
And this group of motley characters goes there to try and conjure this spirit. And then, as you can imagine, mayhem ensues and a string of bizarre, seemingly impossible murders, which Spectre, as a retired magician, is is called on to to investigate using his knowledge of...
00:18:40
Speaker
bye um ah theatrical gimmickry and stagecraft and all that kind of stuff. so So it's a book, I feel like I really kind of pulled out all the stops with this one because it has A very high body count and some of the most fun that I've had with writing a mystery. So yeah, it's it's available now ah in the US from Mysterious Press.
00:19:06
Speaker
And here in the UK, it's published by yeah Head of Zeus, which is an imprint of Bloomsbury.
00:19:14
Speaker
Oh, all of your projects sound so good. I'm looking forward to reading each of them.
Future 'Clued-In Conundrums' Plans
00:19:20
Speaker
Well, this was so much fun. um would love to have each of you back to play another round of Clued-In Conundrums if you would be game once again.
00:19:31
Speaker
Absolutely. be fantastic. Absolutely. Yeah. Great. Well, let's do that, Brooke. Well, thank you for listening today,
Episode Wrap-Up
00:19:40
Speaker
everyone, to Clued-In Mystery and these Clued-In Conundrums.
00:19:45
Speaker
I'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah. And we both love mystery. Clued in Mystery is written and produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers.
00:19:57
Speaker
If you liked what you heard, please consider telling a friend, leaving a review, or subscribing with your favorite podcast listening app. Visit our website to sign up for our newsletter, The Clued in Chronicle, and get mystery news, podcast updates, and bonus episodes.
00:20:11
Speaker
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