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50th episode
207 Plays1 year ago
Brook and Sarah celebrate their 50th recorded episode by reflecting on what they've learned, their favourite episodes so far, and a few future episode ideas.
Discussed in order
Agatha Christie (February 22, 2022)
Arthur Conan Doyle (March 22, 2022)
Dorothy L. Sayers (April 12, 2022)
Anna Katharine Green (May 3, 2022)
Wilkie Collins (May 10, 2022)
Noir and Hardboiled (May 24, 2022)
Historical Mystery with Sara Rosett (September 20, 2022)
For more information
Instagram: @cluedinmystery
Contact us: hello@cluedinmystery.com
Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers – www.silvermansound.com
Transcript
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Transcript
Introduction & Milestone Celebration
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome to Clued In Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke, and we both love mystery. Hi, Brooke. Hi, Sarah. How are you on this very special day? Yeah, I'm OK, thanks. I'm still getting over a cold. You can hear it in my voice probably. But yeah, I'm super excited to talk to you today. Today is our official 50th recording, I will say. So our 50th episode together.
00:00:39
Speaker
I can't believe it. I'm so excited. I'm really proud of us. I'm so proud of us. And I agree. I cannot believe that we've done this 50 times. It does not feel like that.
00:00:54
Speaker
No, it doesn't at all. I was looking through our list of episodes though, and we've talked about a whole bunch of things under the mystery umbrella. And I feel like I've learned a lot, but I don't feel like I've learned anywhere near as much as there is to learn.
Learning from the Mystery Genre
00:01:15
Speaker
That is the theme, isn't it? So, you know, today we just want to talk about the things we've learned, the things we still want to learn, some of our favorite episodes and moments that we've had over the last year. And yeah, and just kind of celebrate where we've come and where we're going. And I agree, Sarah.
00:01:38
Speaker
I knew when we started the podcast that I was going to learn a lot. And you know, that was one of the reasons you and I wanted to do this was to learn about more about mystery, especially the history and the, um, some of the great writers of the golden age, those kinds of topics. Um, but I did not expect sort of the Pandora's box that was going to be opened up and how I, I almost feel now like I have more to learn than when we started.
00:02:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting you say that because I think I feel very similarly that even though we've done 50 episodes and we've talked about, you know, different categories in the mystery genre, I feel like we've really only scratched the surface and there's so much more that we could talk about any of the things that we've already talked about and we still haven't talked about everything that we could talk about.
00:02:33
Speaker
Exactly. Exactly. It just goes on and on and on. Well, we were really lucky to have a few of our listeners tell us about some of their favorite episodes.
Listener Favorites & Guest Praise
00:02:44
Speaker
So thank you for those of you who answered our call on social media to let us know about your favorite shows so far.
00:02:51
Speaker
Regina the Southernista is an avid mystery reader, and she's an Instagram personality. And she says, I loved your very first episodes about Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. So thank you, Regina. And our fellow mystery author and very knowledgeable listener Patricia Meredith says, I loved your episodes about Dorothy L. Sayers, Anna Catherine Green, and Wilkie Collins.
00:03:19
Speaker
Congratulations on 50 episodes. Thank you, Patricia. And speaking of Anna Catherine Green, after our Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys episode just last week, Patricia reached out to let us know that Green wrote mysteries featuring girl detective Violet Strange.
00:03:38
Speaker
And first of all, what a perfect name for a sleuth. Good job, Anna Catherine Green. But that was just an example right there. Violet Strange did not come up in my research for that episode and there's something else we need to learn about.
Highlighting Guest Authors
00:03:55
Speaker
J.C. Fuller is another mystery author friend of ours and she makes the funniest bookish reels and TikTok videos. So if you
00:04:04
Speaker
If that sounds interesting to you, go find JC Fuller, but she says, I enjoyed the Agatha Christie series you did. And JC, we had a ton of fun researching and learning about Agatha Christie too. So we're glad you enjoyed it.
00:04:19
Speaker
Yeah, those are wonderful pieces of feedback. And I agree, those are some of my favorite episodes as well. And I think, yeah, I'd love to do some more episodes about some of the other characters that Agatha Christie created, as well as explore some other authors who were pioneers in the genre who
00:04:41
Speaker
Maybe at the time we're really well known, but have lost some of that awareness with readers. And so I'd love to dig into some of those in some future episodes.
00:04:56
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. We've had some suggestions by people, some of our listeners of authors we should check out. And they're definitely in that category where for whatever reason, they didn't remain popular or at the tip of everyone's tongues. And so they've kind of in a sense been lost to history. So I would really like to investigate some of those too and bring them back to the forefront so other people can enjoy them.
Favorite Episodes & Real-Life Inspirations
00:05:24
Speaker
I would agree with you, Sarah. The Agatha Christie episodes were some of my favorite as well. I think my top favorite was the disappearance of Agatha episode. That was so much fun to research and learn about. I love talking about the theories of her disappearance, both ours and other people's theories.
00:05:46
Speaker
I love that it is an eternal mystery. We're never going to know what really happened and that's just so fun since it originated with the Queen of Crime. It was also great to read the fiction that came out of a real-life event because that's a topic that you and I come back to over and over is that real life then sometimes inspires fictional stories and it definitely happened in that situation.
00:06:15
Speaker
I really enjoyed that episode as well. And I had a really hard time thinking about or picking my favorite episode that we've done because I think after every conversation we have, I say, oh, I loved that. That was so great. Yes.
00:06:32
Speaker
Um, and so, you know, like they're, they're all my favorites, but, um, I really have enjoyed, uh, when we've brought on a guest to talk about something that, you know, we don't know as much about or, you know, something that, that they're an expert
Insights from Guest Interviews
00:06:49
Speaker
in.
00:06:49
Speaker
Um, and I, I think I really enjoyed the episode or the conversation that we had with, uh, Frances from Chronicles of crime about noir and hard boiled. And like, she just knows so much about that. And so that, that was really fun because that for me was something that I had not read a lot of. Um, and just to kind of understand a little bit more about that.
00:07:16
Speaker
Yeah, I agree that the interview episodes are always so much fun. I counted up, we've had 12 guests. So 12 of our 50 episodes have been with friends. You know, I remember Sarah the first time we talked about inviting someone to come on the show and we were a little nervous. Like, will anyone be interested? This brand new podcast. But
00:07:41
Speaker
I think to date we've only had one person turn us down and that was because of an extenuating circumstance. So people have been so wonderful and really anxious to come on the show. Another favorite interview of ours was Sarah Rosette. I loved talking to Sarah. She's such an accomplished person in the mystery space and it was really an honor to have her on the show.
00:08:07
Speaker
But I could name, like you say, every one of them was special and informative and just such a great addition to our show. Just hearing you talking about that and thinking about kind of all of the different
'What Would You Do' Episodes
00:08:23
Speaker
things that we've done. You know, have we done three of the what would you do episodes? And I really enjoy that where we kind of look at a book and talk about what, you know, if I was the main character, what would I do in this situation that the author has put the character into?
00:08:43
Speaker
And I think that's been super fun to do both as a reader and as an author in terms of thinking about how books are structured and how, you know, some of the decisions that an author might make when they're creating their books.
00:09:01
Speaker
Yes, that's a great point. I always feel like we're in a book club when we do those, Sarah. You know your friends out there are reading the same book as you, and then you get to talk about it later. I love those episodes, and I know we have another one coming up soon, so that'll be great.
00:09:16
Speaker
I think one of the other things that I've learned over the last just over a year is what I really like about mystery.
What Defines a Mystery?
00:09:27
Speaker
So I've always felt that mystery, there's mystery elements in
00:09:34
Speaker
almost everything that we read or maybe everything that we read, right? Because there's the question of who or what or why. But having those questions doesn't make a book a mystery.
00:09:49
Speaker
And so I've been thinking a bit about that and that relationship between like, what is it that actually makes a book a mystery? And I've been thinking about that because I've made some reading choices that I've been really disappointed in.
00:10:05
Speaker
recently where a book has been pitched as being a mystery and then I've read it and then thought no this actually wasn't a mystery and so it's been really disappointing as a as a reader to have been expecting something but you know so it had questions of who or what or why but
00:10:27
Speaker
was more ultimately general fiction or women's fiction rather than being a mystery. And so I think over the last year, I've really come to be able to better articulate what I love about mystery and what I want when I'm reading a mystery.
00:10:47
Speaker
Yes, that's definitely true for me as well. And I think it speaks to the popularity of the genre when we see some of those stories marketed as mysteries when really they just have a mystery element in there, which as you say, all good stories should, right? So that sounds like a topic for an upcoming episode, Sarah.
00:11:14
Speaker
I think we could talk about it, but I also don't want to be really critical of the books because the books, they weren't bad. They just weren't what I thought they were going to be. And, you know, that's a decision that someone made when they were marketing the books. And that may not be the fault of the author. And so, you know, I don't want to be
00:11:41
Speaker
I'm critical of that happening. I'm not necessarily critical of the books, but it is disappointing to be like, well, where's the murder? Yes, we have to have that, right? Speaking of things that you've learned, as a lot of us bookish people probably have, those
Future Content & Note-taking
00:12:08
Speaker
those notebooks that either you've purchased or someone's gifted to you that you'd never write in it because you don't want to mess it up. I had this really beautiful bound dot grid notebook that I thought had just been sitting on my shelf. When we started the podcast, Sarah, I thought, okay, this is a good reason to start using that beautiful notebook. It's been so fun watching it fill up.
00:12:33
Speaker
with different colors of ink and highlighters and post-it notes and all my notes from our different episodes. And you know what? It's not even quite halfway finished. So I'm sure that we have at least 50 more episodes in us. At least the notebook does.
00:12:50
Speaker
Oh, Brooke, I love this that you have kept everything in a notebook. And yeah, I agree. We have I would like to think at least 50 more episodes because there's just so much that we can talk about in mystery. Yes. Yeah, I hope I hope we can continue to do that.
Exploring New Mystery Genres
00:13:10
Speaker
Another thing that struck me is, yes, during the past year, I would have been reading mysteries, of course, but there are many, many books that I never would have read if we hadn't been preparing for episodes. But because we were being really specific about a certain topic or a subgenre,
00:13:29
Speaker
I have read a lot of political thrillers and spy thrillers that I wouldn't have read and experimented in the world of mystery. So that has been really enriching for me. Some of my favorite books that I've picked up because of the show are the Bella Ellis Bronte Sister Mysteries.
00:13:51
Speaker
And mystery man in who was also a guest on the show suggested the Elizabeth Peters series. And those have been there's one of those authors that I hadn't read before. But because of the show, I've learned about and they're really great. And then, of course, Sarah, you have turned me on to Anthony Horowitz's work. And now I'm a big fan just like you.
00:14:20
Speaker
Yeah, we should go through and count up how many times I've mentioned Anthony Horowitz because it's probably close to every episode. It's an Easter egg hunt for our listeners.
00:14:34
Speaker
Like you, Brooke, there's been some books that I've read over the last year and a bit that I probably wouldn't have read if it weren't for the podcast. And one example of that is some short story collections.
00:14:51
Speaker
that I really hadn't read a lot of short stories before we started the podcast, but I've really, really come to enjoy them and have been, you know, checking short story collections out of the library as a result because they're just such a great way to kind of get introduced to different authors.
00:15:15
Speaker
That's awesome. Yeah.
Appreciating Short Stories & Looking Ahead
00:15:17
Speaker
And I really enjoyed our episode on short stories and it brought that all the good things about short stories to the forefront again. And, and there are so many good mystery short stories. So.
00:15:30
Speaker
I know this has been a different episode because we haven't talked about anything specific in the mystery space. We've just been waxing on about how much we love mysteries generally and how much we've enjoyed making this podcast.
00:15:46
Speaker
I hope our listeners have enjoyed listening to us talk for the last 50 episodes and will continue to listen to us as we continue our education in mystery. Absolutely. We would love to hear ideas for shows that you'd like to learn about. If there's a topic or a sub-genre that you want to hear more about,
00:16:14
Speaker
We'd be anxious to research and share what we learn. And we want to thank you all for being here for our first 50 episodes. We hope that we get to do this for a lot longer. Thank you for joining us on Clued in Mystery. I'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah. And we both love mystery.
00:16:32
Speaker
Clued in Mystery is produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers at Silvermansound.com. Visit us online at cluedinmystery.com or social media at Clued in Mystery. If you liked what you heard, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or telling your friends.