
What Are the 39 Steps? The Book Holds the Key …
This detective novel introduces readers to a British mining engineer – Richard Hannay – who has just returned to London
Tea, Tonic and Toxin is a book club and podcast for anyone who loves amazing mysteries and detective stories. Next up: The Notting Hill Mystery (1862-1863). (Be sure to check out our Notting Hill Mystery podcast episode!)
The Notting Hill Mystery is often called the first detective novel. When the wife of Baron R** dies after drinking acid. It looks like an accident until insurance investigator Ralph Henderson discovers that Baron R** took out several life insurance policies on her. From there, the plot thickens.
Readers see everything Henderson sees, including letters, diary entries, witness interviews, a marriage certificate, and a map of the crime scene. The New York Times Book Review called The Notting Hill Mystery “both utterly of its time and utterly ahead of it.”
Read: Buy it on Amazon, buy it used, or read it for free, courtesy of Project Gutenberg. (Reading time: ~5 hours)
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Tea, Tonic, and Toxin is a book club and podcast for people who love mysteries, thrillers, introspection, and good conversation. Each month, your hosts, Sarah Harrison and Carolyn Daughters, will discuss a game-changing mystery or thriller from the 19th and 20th centuries. Together, we’ll see firsthand how the genre evolved.
Along the way, we’ll entertain ideas, prospects, theories, doubts, and grudges, along with the occasional guest. And we hope to entertain you, dear friend. We want you to experience the joys of reading some of the best mysteries and thrillers ever written.
This detective novel introduces readers to a British mining engineer – Richard Hannay – who has just returned to London
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Long before he started writing his own detective stories, Gilbert Keith (G.K.) Chesterton was already a fan of the genre.
Searching for the best detective podcasts? We read 11 books in 2022, with 12 more coming in 2023! Listen in!
Baroness Orczy was a novelist I had never heard of until recently, although her tales featuring Lady Molly of Scotland
This haunting story by Arthur Conan Doyle was my first introduction to Sherlock Holmes – in the 1939 film version
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© 2023 by Sarah Harrison and Carolyn Daughters