Tea, Tonic & Toxin is a history of mystery book club and podcast. We’re discussing the best mysteries ever written and interviewing the world’s best mystery and thriller writers.
THE MOVING TOYSHOP (1946) by Edmund Crispin is a classic in the mystery genre for its blend of intellectual humor, eccentric characters, ingenious plot twists, and a delightfully surreal premise.
When a poet stumbles upon a murder in an Oxford toyshop that vanishes the next day, eccentric professor Gervase Fen investigates. Edmund Crispin’s clever approach to the detective story has made the book a beloved and enduring work of crime fiction.
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September 1, 2026
Spoiler-free introduction to The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin. Folks, this is how you STAY MYSTERIOUS! Join us, won't you?
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August 31, 2026
Our dear friend Arvind Ethan David returns to tell us about his debut novel, The Great game. You won't want to miss this episode!
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August 30, 2026
Fascinating interview with Rachel Corbett, author of The Monsters We Make: Murder, Obsession, and the Rise of Criminal Profiling.
Listen →Tea, Tonic, and Toxin is a book club and podcast for people who love mysteries, thrillers, introspection, and good conversation. Your hosts, Carolyn Daughters and Sarah Harrison, are discussing game-changing mysteries, starting with Edgar Allan Poe onward. Together, we’ll watch the genre evolved.
Along the way, we’ll entertain ideas, prospects, theories, doubts, grudges, fabulous guests, and interviews with talented, contemporary mystery authors. Together, we’ll experience the joys of reading the best mysteries and thrillers ever written.
Sarah loves getting to the bottom of any mystery having to do with life, love, work, play, personality, or process dysfunction. A scientist obsessed with reading fiction, she launched PORN (People Obsessed with Reading Novels -- get your mind out of the gutter!) while in grad school. After nine years, it was time for her book club to transmogrify into the podcast before you, sending its tendrils out to find you, friend. When she isn't hanging with her husband and two kids or running her business, Grace Sigma, she's taking a deep dive into the history, art, and architecture of this dark genre.
Carolyn has loved mysteries ever since she and her sister Michele started the CarMich Detective Agency when they were kids. Though she has never solved a crime, she is an excellent detective. When she isn't trying to convince people she's an excellent detective, she's busy running her company, CarolynDaughters.com, serving as a fractional chief marketing officer for small businesses, teaching persuasive writing courses, exploring new neighborhoods on foot, photographing street art, and boarding planes early and often (47 states, 42 countries, and counting). She's coming for you, North Dakota and Bhutan.
Dashiell Hammett’s crime novel Red Harvest is more than just a gripping detective story. It’s also a political statement, inspired...
Read More >When Dorothy L. Sayers wrote Whose Body? (her debut novel, published in 1923), she introduced a detective who would go...
Read More >If you’re a fan of Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries, I’m sure you’re already familiar with Hercule Poirot, the eccentric Belgian...
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