Death of the Reader

We discuss Bruce Hamilton's 'Too Much of Water', chapters 1-4. Flex is back, and it's time to dive into a water-based mystery aboard the Goyaz. Edgar Cantrell is bound for Barbados, and all manner of high society find themselves aboard the boat together. Singers, cricketers, barristers, and of course military-man Major Major. One too many bumps on a stormy night signals the pre-emptive departure o...

The finale of Who Shot JR at last. One of the most viewed episodes of American tv in history and the series that inspired Who Shot Mr Burns, Dallas spends most of their reveal episode recapping the last four epiusodes for those of us that weren't paying attention! Sue Ellen finally takes centre stage as our true detective when she is thrown in jail and bailed out overnight by a mysterious benefact...

Herds and Cam are back at it again, by popular demand, with the middle section of Dallas' 'Who Shot JR?' in which honestly, not much very important happens. The elusive 3rd Ewing brother Greg visits from his own spinoff show, JR struggles to run the Ewing oil company from his hospital bed, and Bobby is essentially forced to stay on the show when his father puts him in charge of everything (at leas...

Herds and Cam discuss the season finale of Dallas' third season, 'A House Divided', and take a crack at solving the America-wide sensation 'Who Shot JR'? After JR, eldest son of the wealthy Ewing estate executes one too many backdoor oil schemes he is shot twice in the abdomen and left for dead. The episode explores the motivations of the many people who would have reasons to shoot him, whether fo...

We discuss chapters 25-36 of Aoife Clifford's brand new collective-detective murder mystery, 'It Takes A Town'. Herds and Cam come to the end of all things, 'Jaz 'the visual' Langridge is kidnapped (for real) this time, incompetent cop Billy and town drunk Mer work together to navigate a sudden and dangerous showdown. The friendship of Mer and Frankie is put to the ultimate test and the final culp...

We discuss chapters 12-24 of Aoife Clifford's brand new collective-detective murder mystery, 'It Takes A Town'. Frankie and Mer move closer to center stage as their lives are compltely turned upside down. Frankie is asked to leave her teaching job as she is under suspicion of her once friend Vanessa Walton, the cops force her to make a very bad decision about handling some key evidence, and the da...

We discuss chapters 1-11 of Aoife Clifford's brand new collective-detective murder mystery, 'It Takes A Town'. Policewoman Carole, distressed mother Frankie, town drunk Mer(maid) and a gaggle of schoolchildren reminiscent of the Scooby Gang all team up to corner the killer of local town star Vanessa Walton, recently returned from a grand tour of fame and fortune, now found dead in the cottage of l...

We discuss chapters 26-42 of Sulari Gentill's brand new metafiction standalone, 'The Mystery Writer'. We come to the explosive finale as the evil Greek machinist Satan Herself is exposed to the world and characters we've never seen before swoop in on helicopters and take part in duels involving both pistols and large burly vehicles. The plot has gone a bit off the rails but Sulari is here to tell...

We discuss chapters 15-25 of Sulari Gentill's brand new metafiction standalone, 'The Mystery Writer'. Theo Benton is a law-school escapee from Tasmania, fled to her brother Gus' home in Lawrence, Kansas. She finds herself as the prime suspect in the murder of her almost-boyfriend Dan Murdoch, and now the conspiracy tightens its hold over her life as her home is besieged by journos and Murdoch fans...

We discuss chapters 1-14 of Sulari Gentill's brand new metafiction standalone, 'The Mystery Writer'. Theo Benton is a law-school escapee from Tasmania, fled to her brother Gus' home in Lawrence, Kansas. The world of law might have suited Gus, but Theo wants to be a writer, and her brother is ready to support Theo through that journey. Soon after committing to her new life, Theo meets Dan Murdoch,...

We discuss the ITV (1992), BBC (2018), and Frank Tashlin (1965) screen adaptations of Agatha Christie's 'The ABC Murders'. An unusual plot for the mystery great, how have histories most lauded (and least) tweaked the plot for the moving image? From spellbinding performances by David Suchet, Donald Sumpter, and John Malkovich, to laughable replacement-by-buxom-blondes, you're spoiled for choice whe...

We discuss chapters 28-35 of Agatha Christie's notorious serial murder story, 'The ABC Murders'. Our criminal, Mr. ABC, has turned himself in. As Poirot prepares to interrogate the madman, he comments to Hastings that he expects to be lied to - only to have a twist dropped in his lap. How can the seemingly unbreakable alibi of our killer be broken? Perhaps the real lie is that this man is the kill...

We discuss chapters 15-27 of Agatha Christie's notorious serial murder story, 'The ABC Murders'. A fourth murder has taken place, but breaks the pattern of alliteration. Is the killer getting sloppy? It certainly seems so, as Alexander Bonaparte Cust totters around right under the Legion's nose. As their faith in Poirot wavers as much as their reliance on him grows, the threat of impending murders...

We discuss chapters 1-14 of Agatha Christie's notorious serial murder story, 'The ABC Murders'. Captain Hastings has returned to London, and meets his friend Poirot reminiscing of their best days solving murders together. As they long for new thrills, one arrives in the post, as a series of letters herald the arrival of a new murderer in London. Three murders, each of victims with alliterative nam...

We discuss the season debut of The Simpsons seventh season, and its infamous puzzle. It wasn't 16:9 that foiled Flex at all, it was his sheer lack of humour. Smithers is pinned as the culprit after he confesses to shooting an old man in the streets. Fortunately, there is more than one old man in Springfield for him to shoot. That leaves one suspect for the mob in Springfield to go after - but unfo...

Welcome to your Murder Mystery Detour! Once a whenever-we-can, Flex and Herds go live (or undead, as the case may be), to talk about their latest fixations in the crime fiction world, and we hear from you about yours! We're also joined by our editor, Cameron Furlong, producer Max Mahood, and feature an interview from Jonathan Chang. Our guests are Brydon Coverdale, Dinuka McKenzie, and Robert Conn...

We talk with Quinns from People Make Games to about the Mystery Role-Play craze that has taken hold of China; Jubensha. What sets it apart from the Mystery Dinner Parties that accompany every crime fiction festival and book club? We also speak about role-play in the English speaking world, the complications of safety tools, and more of Quinns' experience playing Jubensha during his investigation....

We discuss the season finale of The Simpsons sixth season, and its infamous puzzle. Springfield Elementary is almost destroyed in an eruption, but fortunately, it's an eruption of oil, so they're wealthy now. At least, they would be, if Mr. Burns wasn't up to his antics, preparing to destroy all that is good in the world. Nobody in Springfield is free from his cruel machinations, so when he dies,...

Herds presents the much coveted Golden pants award straight from Sulari Gentill’s wardrobe to… Everyone, and by that we don’t mean the heart-warming everyone, as in everyone’s a winner, but rather the Everyone series by Benjamin Stevenson. That’s right, two books can share a placement, as long as they’re written by the same author. There was much internal debate on the Death of the Reader team as...

Review Season is about recommendations. You don’t need someone to recommend you Sherlock Holmes. Whether or not you have read Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories, watched one of the many renditions, or experienced some form of pastiche, there is no doubt that some comparison to Sherlock Holmes worms its way into your life. Especially if you said something painfully obvious. What is far, far less...

There are three entries here and only one can take back the coveted Sulari Gentill prize, winning for themselves eternal glory and golden dance pants to take home. In the bronze position, standing tall head and shoulders over a dozen others, the bloody, the historical, The Red Death Murders written by Jim Noy. Noy’s work brings together three of Herds favourite aspects of historical fiction. You’v...

It’s time for the controversial entry in our list of high class detective fiction, there’s always one. Usually any films that we cover will be contentious in terms of placement, is it really fair to place a work of a visual medium in the same competition as some musty old books? Am I even qualified to talk about film theory? Well, I’ll have you know that I completed at least one, and I quote: “uns...

Why read one detective story, when you could have eight? Coming in 5th Place on Review Season for our 2023 Recommendations is Alex Pavesi, with his debut mystery novel ‘Eight Detectives’. Released in 2020, the novel takes Alex’s background in mathematics, and questions the numerical principles that define the genre, except, that’s not quite the whole story.

To follow up the historical supernatural mayhem that is the Chinese Gold Murders I couldn’t think of a more opposite yet familiar companion novel than our sixth place winner. I’m proud to grant G.K Chesterton’s The Innocence of Father Brown this position in our rankings. Father Brown is a detective who we’ve had literally tens of requests to cover, and that’s pretty high for us. He’s an unassuming...

We’re officially in the upper half of the entries and it is with no small amount of nepotism that I would advocate to you a historical novel for seventh place. The Chinese Gold Murders, by Robert van Gulik occupy a bizarre place in the history of Chinese crime fiction, in that the credited author is as much an author as an adapter of foreign fiction. The myth goes that Robert, a Dutch diplomat on...