Author Mike Nugent joins Sarah and Carolyn to talk about noir, crime fiction, and all things Sam Spade (who’s described as resembling a blond satan). The Maltese Falcon changed the way crime fiction was written. You’ll want to read it in one sitting and then give our podcast a listen.
Sarah, Carolyn, and Mike Nugent keep the Maltese Falcon conversation flowing with LOADS more thoughts about Sam Spade, Effie Perine, Casper Gutman, Joel Cairo, and, of course, the ever-elusive Brigid O’Shaughnessy. Folks, we have a lot of ground to cover. Join us, won’t you?
Hey, Continental Op, what’s your deal? Are you a hero? Anti-hero? Something else altogether? Hear our thoughts about the Op, Dinah Brand, Whisper, and all the gang – and let us know your tally of how many people wind up dead in the book. It’s hard to keep track.
What a bloody, crime-filled, mindbender of a novel. There’s no delightful married couple with a fox terrier in this one, and Poisonville lacks the seedy charm of 1920s San Francisco. Red Harvest is a crime thriller masterpiece, and the Continental Op is an anti-hero for the ages.
As Sir Walter Scott once wrote, “what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, most everyone’s lying about something – and one of those liars is both a blackmailer and a killer. Eli Milliman joins Sarah and Carolyn to hash it out!
The super smart, highly creative, and always entertaining Eli Milliman joins Sarah and Carolyn in a lively, introspective discussion of Agatha Christie’s rightfully famous The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. The ending is a shocker. Christie was a genius, no two ways about it.
Carolyn did not expect Lord Peter Wimsey to be so complex. He suffers from PTSD, and Dorothy Sayers does a bang-up job of conveying the otherworldly disconnect some experience during panic attacks. He won Carolyn over. The always insightful Sarah liked him all along.
Sarah, Carolyn, and special guest Jill Carstens would like to spend some time at Styles Court. Strolls around the grounds, hours spent reading each day, afternoon tea, evening libations … An outlier among a cast of selfish characters, Hercule Poirot is sympathetic, smart, and, of course, THE foremost master of detection.
Special guest Jill Carstens returns to talk more about The Mysterious Affair at Styles, where we meet Hercule Poirot. He’s a methodical marvel who’s nonplussed by the affairs, awkward proposals, loveless marriages, and privileged egotism of the various suspects. Poirot is delightful. Much like Sarah, Carolyn, and Jill.
Sarah and Carolyn and special guest Wendi Anderson discuss approximately 492 topics related to but not directly about John Buchan’s short, fast-paced espionage thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps. We learn that both Sarah and Wendi will open the door when a stranger knocks. Sarah will even let that someone use her phone.
