Mystery on the Rocks

Sooz, Chris and Masud all agree that Succession is one of the greatest TV shows ever made, and that the finale is one of the greatest TV finales of all time... So here is a one-off Succession special where we get everything out of our system following the conclusion of an absolutely phenomenal show, so that further episodes of Mystery on the Rocks are not blighted (quite so much as previously) by...

January 1994, in a sleepy West Midlands village, a retired school caretaker makes a gruesome discovery while walking his dog. A gruesome delivery with links to arms dealing, a double shooting and Kuwaiti royalty... Get early, ad-free access to episodes as well as cocktail recipes and outtakes plus whole bonus episodes over on our Patreon. Just head to www.patreon.com/mysteryontherocks where this c...

Oslo, 1995. A Jane Doe. With a gunshot wound to the head. Holding a gun she couldn't possibly have fired. In a locked hotel room in Oslo... Mystery upon mystery upon mystery. So what really happened and who was she? The answers to these questions might never be answered but join us for a quick look through what we DO know and if it might offer a solution? Get early, ad-free access to episodes as w...

In April 1935 a tiger shark is caught 2 miles out to sea from Sydney before being transferred to a nearby aquarium where, in front of awed spectators, it vomits out a human arm with a distinctive tattoo. This is only the beginning... We take a look at the series of coincidences and bizarre chain of events which centre around this puking shark. Get early, ad-free access to episodes as well as cockt...

We're back! A quick note to say that the first episode of the sixth season had a bit of a messed up audio file (Masud going away obviously jinxed us) but we have cleaned up to the best of our abilities. Going forward, all should be resolved tech wise and subsequent episodes won't have this hiccup... In February 1945, 70 year old Charles Walton is found near his Warwickshire home brutally murdered...

Season Six starts NEXT MONTH but we recorded a brand new special episode ahead of that to mark our 4th anniversary! December 2008 in Jackson, Tennessee bar owner and sheriff's deputy Euhommie Bond is tragically killed in a shootout outside his bar and grill, Spanky's. With so much gunfire concentrated in such a short space of time, finding out who killed him is no mean feat, one main reason why th...

An extra episode to (belatedly) kick off 2023. When the Andrew Tate/Greta Thunberg thing kicked off on Twitter, we decided to do an impromptu episode to discuss it, some British political happenings of 2022 and also to do a bit of between-seasons admin we weren't able to do in the previous episode on account of being thrown out (quite, quite rightly) of the Phoenix Arts Club. Unfortunately it was...

So a little later than expected... By us too! Illness and Christmas and family and bollocks conspire as they always do to stymie any kind of momentum. Not that Christmas and family are in trouble for doing so but illness and bollocks can fuck off quite frankly. Anyway, our Christmas (more like New Year) Special - recorded on location backstage at the Phoenix Arts Club - is here! Sooz takes the rei...

It's here! We did it! YOU did it! Made it through our longest season yet. We take stock of the topics covered and take a moment to reflect on our collective favourite episode of this season - Magnus Hirschfeld and Dora Richter. We discuss how it's a good indicator of whether or not humanity has learned from the history of the 20th Century. We don't think it has! Thanks for sticking with us this se...

It's (almost) the end... A mammoth trawl through geopolitics, war and espionage brings us to 2021 and an outgoing US President incites an insurrection on the house of government. What led us there, what parallels from history can be drawn and, more interestingly, where could this possibly lead us? We don't get entirely gloomy though, there's also a bit where we all thirst over Denzel Washington. H...

We hurtle towards the present day and the end of this mammoth season as we hit 2018 this week when the poisonings of two Russians, a father and daughter named Sergei and Yulia Skripal, in the Wiltshire town of Salisbury kick off mass panic, the death of a woman entirely unrelated to them whatsoever, a further tensing of international relations with Russia itself, calls to boycott the World Cup AND...

In 2010, Gareth Williams - a mathematician and spy - is found dead in a padlocked duffel bag in a bath tub in an en suite in a British secret service safe house in Pimlico with no fingerprints, not even Gareth's, left on the padlock, bag or bathroom. Loads of theories have come out since but, if we're honest, no real satisfactory explanation for what actually happened. Did Russia attempt to recrui...

In 2006, British-based Russian author and journalist Alexander Litvinenko is suddenly taken seriously ill. His deterioration is world news, chronicled right up until his death 3 weeks later. Thing is, Litvinenko wasn't only a journalist - he was a former Russian agent. And not only was he a former Russian agent, he was a vocal critic of the Kremlin and of Vladmir Putin, having gone on record accus...

One of the most seismic events of recent history, conspiracy theories abound as to what "really happened" when planes flew into the World Trade Center (plus Pentagon, and stopped from flying into the Capitol) on September 11, 2001. We take a look at some of them and how, actually, such theories aren't as harmless as some might think. Yeah, as Masud called it - it's the Big One. Sooz has been waiti...

In 1998 a White House intern's life comes crashing down after her affair with the President of the United States is exposed. Worldwide media goes crazy, the President is impeached but ultimately moves on with reputation intact, relative to the intern's in question... Monica Lewinsky. So how did the affair come to light, what were the ramifications and could it possibly have somehow contributed to...

This week is a rundown of the events of the final few years of the Cold War, ultimately bringing it to an end. Masud couldn't be with us this week so rather than do a mystery without him (it felt naughty doing one without Sooz a little while ago) we took the opportunity to chronicle something rather momentous in the geopolitics of the 20th Century. Which is what this season is meant to be about of...

We're hurtling towards the end of the Cold War and into the final decade of the 20th Century with this tale of intrigue concerning a Soviet double agent. Espionage, treason, a potentially mysterious fate and a recipe for coot... What happened to Dmitri Polyakov, a.k.a Top Hat???? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's Episode 150! And it's the nuclear disaster which cast an almost literal cloud over the latter half of the 1980s - Chernobyl! We look at what happened, the causes and the effects, some of which continue to this day. Panicking about how to sensitively handle this subject on a comedy podcast, we distract ourselves with a lengthy chat about breakfast cereals, another disaster by the name of Moonf...

In 1986, the Swedish Prime Minister is shot dead walking back from the cinema. His long career in politics saw him make a lot of international enemies but even so, the case has never been solved. Maybe because there are so many damn suspects and possible motives? Including Yugoslavian intelligence, an arms deal scandal, Chilean extremists and more... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more...

Two out of three ain't bad, right? Not a full house this week guys as our schedules are still tricky to align. While we have decided to record if two of us can make it, this isn't a permanent arrangement so don't worry! This week we take a look at an unsolved murder mystery which also happens to be a love story taking in movie stars, gulags and Stalin's inner circle... It's the incredible story of...

This week's episode sees us back to our current season and bidding farewell to the 1970s in... Cambodia! Malcolm Caldwell, a Marxist writer from Scotland, is killed in mysterious circumstances very shortly after meeting Cambodia's leader, the infamous Pol Pot. Despite being a vocal supporter of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime, uncommon in the West, could Caldwell have been murdered for something he s...

An update to one of the earliest cases we covered and one of the most enduring mysteries of all time... The Somerton Man! A study believes they've unearthed the mystery man's identity so we take a sidestep from our current season and have a quick chat about the updates to this famous case... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

September 11 1978, Georgi Markov dies in hospital in Balham, South London. Markov was a Bulgarian journalist working for the BBC, having recently defected to the West earlier that year. He had developed a fear after something resembling an insect bite appeared on his thigh. An autopsy found a small pellet in the area, most likely filled with ricin. Before he died Georgi told his wife that when he...

Content Warning for this week: graphic descriptions (ie, direct quotes from witnesses) of mass murder... July 14th 1976, a house is torched in eastern France. The charred remains of its owner, a man named Rainer Buschman, are found within holding a pistol and a .22 calibre rifle in a defensive position. Not only is Rainer Buschman not who he first appeared to be, but there is also doubt from the F...

This week's episode, we pop to Africa and gross ourselves out by having to say 'Rhodesia' a lot. In 1975, Herbert Chitepo was assassinated by a car bomb, which was so powerful it also claimed the lives of others. Herbert was the first black barrister in Rhodesia and a prominent figure in the fight for independence and the reclamation of Zimbabwe. However, some thought he was too moderate which mea...