
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 people obsessed with mysteries and thrillers. In reading, we’ll explore ideas about the books and about ourselves. We started with Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Now let’s compare it with “The Purloined Letter.”
Poe called “The Purloined Letter” “perhaps the best of my tales of ratiocination.” The story, published in 1844, is an excellent mystery, minus the Gothic horror of “Rue Morgue.” Together, Poe’s stories form the foundation of the mystery story as we know it.
Read: Buy it on Amazon, buy it used, or read it for free, courtesy of Project Gutenberg. (Reading time: ~1 hours)
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What do we know about the story and about the narrator’s conceit? The narrator judges Monsieur G- for being inept, yet he himself never solves a mystery. He doesn’t seem superior in any way to the inspector, but seems to feel himself superior by virtue of his friendship with Dupin. Have you ever felt yourself more knowledgable or elite or better in some way simply because of your friends or associations?
And so much French and Latin. With no footnotes. Are we losing the ability to express ourselves with nuance (and be understood as such)? If so, what’s to blame? Contemporary media, egocentrism, anti-intellectualism? What have we lost?
This detective novel introduces readers to a British mining engineer – Richard Hannay – who has just returned to London
Even though the name of this book is Trent’s Last Case, the novel is actually about the FIRST detective case
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
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.
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© 2023 by Sarah Harrison and Carolyn Daughters