Sarah Harrison 0:24 Welcome to Tea Tonic, & Toxin, a book club and podcast for anyone who wants to explore the best mysteries and thrillers ever written. I'm your host, Sarah Harrison. Carolyn Daughters 0:35 And I'm your host Carolyn daughters, for yourself a cup of tea, a gin and tonic, but not a toxin. And join us on a journey through 19th and 20th century mysteries and thrillers every one of them a game changer. Sarah Harrison 0:57 We have such an exciting and different episode today. Carolyn Daughters 1:00 We do. We're going to look ahead. Sarah Harrison 1:02 Yeah, it's the prospective. Carolyn Daughters 1:05 Prospective. We're so fancy. Sarah Harrison 1:07 We're nothing but fancy. Fancy and professional is all we are at the Tea Tonic & Toxin podcast. We're going for best mystery podcast 2024! Carolyn Daughters 1:16 We've got 12 amazing books for 2024, and we want to talk a little bit about them. Sarah Harrison 1:21 If you are like us, you'll want to order your books ahead of time. I mean, order all of them. But if you can't order them, we'll be talking through some of them. Carolyn Daughters 1:33 That's a great point. We have links to all of these books on Amazon. So you can order the books directly from our website, and you will not pay anything extra to do it. But we will get a small commission, which helps us basically stay up and running because we're a heartfelt, but small shop here. Sarah Harrison 1:51 A small labor of love is what we are. And so if you want to love us in turn, we will love you back. It's all love here. Hey, but before we get into that, we do have another listener of the month. I am so pleased to say that Jessie Sawyer has been listening on her drives from Park City, Utah. So we're very excited. Thank you so much for listening, Jessie. Is this our first Utah listener of the month. Carolyn Daughters 2:23 I'm not sure. I've been creating a state-by-state list. I don't have the list in front of me, but I feel like it might be our first Utah. Sarah Harrison 2:29 I think it is. So congratulations, Jessie. A beautiful, gorgeous sticker will be coming your way soon. Carolyn Daughters 2:39 It's a lovely sticker. And listeners, you're going to want to get one of your own. I mean, I'm just guessing. Sarah Harrison 2:45 Of course you do. I mean, why wouldn't you want a sticker? Carolyn Daughters 2:48 It's a pretty good sticker. All you have to do is comment on our website, which is teatonicandtoxin.com. Or on our Instagram or Facebook pages @teatonicandtoxin. There are other things you can do. You can subscribe to the podcast, you can give the podcast five stars on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. We're everywhere. Any of these things will probably earn you a sticker. Sarah Harrison 3:10 Yeah, Spotify has additional interaction capabilities as well. So, you know, answer some polls, vote, answer some questions give your feedback. We always love to hear what you have to say about a book or anything else. Carolyn Daughters 3:27 Well, not anything ... Sarah Harrison 3:28 Well, most anything. I do. I'm very curious. Carolyn Daughters 3:33 If it's super, super off topic you can write Sarah Harrison. Sarah Harrison 3:36 I'm a curious person. Carolyn Daughters 3:38 Yes. And if it's on topic, I'm on board. Sarah Harrison 3:43 All right. Well, we have 12 amazing selections. Carolyn and I actually have things scoped out for the next three years. Carolyn Daughters 3:54 We did. We went crazy. Sarah Harrison 3:57 We went sane, it was very sane. You got to think ahead. You got to think strategically. You got to think fairly. I mean, there's a lot to think about. You know, one thing that's really interesting about this book club is that the club -- and by the club, I mean, mostly Carolyn -- is curating the list. We're not following an external list. There's a lot out there. And we do consult them. But the Tea Tonic & Toxin book club is curating the list. We're doing everything we can to be the best mystery podcast 2024 by covering the history of the whole genre. So take a look at our lists. See if you agree. If you disagree or if there are some you would add in or if there are some you would subtract, let us know. Carolyn Daughters 4:40 We have our list for 2024 on the website. We're covering a huge, immense period of time. Sarah Harrison 4:49 Immense. What is it four years. Carolyn Daughters 4:51 It's five years, Sarah. It's 1934 all the way to 1939. Sarah Harrison 4:58 Oh, right, right, right. Five years. Carolyn Daughters 5:00 Five glorious years. There are so many things we could have done, right? So we're focusing on the history of mystery, we're chronological. We left off in 1934 with The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers. We could have jumped into the '40s immediately. We could have gone into the '50s. Sarah Harrison 5:20 That would be crazy. You can't skip a decade. Carolyn Daughters 5:23 You could. Sarah Harrison 5:24 I guess you can do what you want. Carolyn Daughters 5:26 This is a really rich period. There's so much to explore. And we cut out so many books. Really, we could have done 1934. Here are the 12 best mystery novels of of 1934. So we're picking and choosing and curating. We're trying to figure out where to begin this thing and where to end it. Initially, I was thinking we would be in the 40s in 2024. But the book selections that we were cutting seemed so important. And there were all of these amazing authors who we weren't super familiar with, but who had these immense reputations, and were super influential in the genre. And I thought, let's bring a couple of these people back. Sarah Harrison 6:17 Right. You know, it's not like we're on a time assignment here. This is a long game podcast. Carolyn Daughters 6:24 We're in this for the long haul, folks. Sarah Harrison 6:27 We're not going a decade per year or any sort of arbitrary nonsense. We're strictly trying to evaluate the books we choose on the merit of the books, what they're bringing to the development of the genre, and their own impact. We think they're all going to be winners. I'm already ordering them. I'm looking forward to reading them. Is this still considered the Golden Age of detective fiction? Carolyn Daughters 6:51 I think so. There will be different names for this period and for the writers writing in it. This cozy British school, the Dorothy Sayers, the Agatha Christie, that's going to be part of the Golden Age still here in 1934 to 1939. We're also going to have the hardboiled school. We have The Thin Man, The Postman Always Rings Twice. We've got several books that are going to feel like the anti-Agatha Christie, anti-Dorothy Sayers. Sarah Harrison 7:27 And we'll also be reading also Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers this coming year as well. Carolyn Daughters 7:32 We do. We're starting the year with the Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett, which is 1934. It has these two amazing characters, Nick and Nora Charles, called detective duo. He's the main detective just to be fair, but she's about as witty and patient and just glorious a character as I've seen on the page. I love her. And they're super funny together. He's going to solve a crime with her help and the help of a variety of other people. It's this amazing period, it starts around the Christmas season into new year. I think it's the perfect book for January 2024 -- and for the best mystery podcast 2024. Sarah Harrison 8:19 Yeah, so if you want to keep your holidays going, get The Thin Man. But I'm personally really looking forward to seeing what a funny Dashiell Hammett sounds like because Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon were something different than that. Carolyn Daughters 8:35 If you've read Red Harvest, which hopefully you have by now -- listen to our episodes on Red Harvest. Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man are the complete antithesis of everything that's happening in Red Harvest. They're a wealthy couple. They are, I'm going to say, probably alcoholics. Sarah Harrison 8:57 Are they for the time, though? I still remember in Trent's Last Case when they're talking about the guy who was murdered. They were like, he was fairly abstemious. You know, he only drinks a glass of wine at lunch, a glass of champagne at dinner, and has his brandy and soda nightcap. The guy is drinking three or four drinks a day, and he's considered abstemious. Carolyn Daughters 9:23 That's true. I don't know. They pour drinks nonstop in The Thin Man. It's incredible. They're up till all hours of the morning. They sleep until noon. It's an incredible lifestyle. They're well off. They're not like the Continental Op in Red Harvest. They're not like Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon. They're completely different characters. It's a really interesting sort of twist there. Sarah Harrison 9:57 I'm looking forward to seeing a lady detective again as well. We haven't seen one of those since Lady Molly of Scotland Yard. Carolyn Daughters 10:02 Nora Charles is really sort of a helpmate. She has good insights into people. She adds a lot of wit and spark to the scenes. There are a lot of scenes in this book where she could play the jealous wife, and arguably should play the jealous wife. And she just doesn't bat an eye. She holds her own with anyone in the room. She's tough. And the movie version of The Thin Man, which I'm hoping we can watch, is amazing. It's really one of my favorite films. It's William Powell and Myrna Loy, who are two of the greats. They are phenomenal together. I love them dearly. So I'm very excited about January. Sarah Harrison 10:03 Awesome. Let's watch it. All right, well, The Thin Man sounds like a great book. What other kinds of firsts are we going to be seeing here -- without spoilers, of course. When we get to the episode, you know we'll include major spoilers. So don't listen to the podcast episode unless you're never going to read the book or you've already read the book. The Thin Man is a good way to start the best mystery podcast 2024. What other firsts are we going to cover in 2024? Carolyn Daughters 11:12 The Hollow Man we're going to read by John Dickson Carr. Many say it's the best execution of the locker room mystery ever written. Is it? We're going to weigh in. We've read several of them by now starting with The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe. Sarah Harrison 11:31 Okay, so the locked room is itself a sub-genre that's developing. That's neat. Carolyn Daughters 11:42 We're going to look at The ABC Murders, 1936, by Agatha Christie. It's possibly the first serial killer book. There's a serial killer in the midst, and that killer is challenging Hercule Poirot to a battle of wits. Readers are probably going to be kept guessing till the end. And the murderer is just gonna go one by one. He'll kill somebody whose last name starts with the letter A and then the letter B. Sarah Harrison 12:19 So the first clue is they know everyone's last name. Carolyn Daughters 12:22 Yeah, so it's interesting stuff. There's also a really good ITV version of the story, which is the British television series station, starring David Suchet. It's a really good adaptation of The ABC Murders, which, which I liked a lot. Sarah Harrison 12:45 You know, listeners, this is something Carolyn and I have discussed a bit. If you have a chance to weigh in, we would love to know. It's this -- a lot of these stories are so well known, and a lot of them have corresponding movies. We had a whole conversation on Murder on the Orient Express about the different movie versions. We would love to maybe do some movie episodes about some tie-ins. If that's interesting to you, or if you have favorite mystery movies you want to throw out there, please comment and let us know. Or if it's not interesting to you, and you're like, please don't do that, let us know that, too. We can only be the best mystery podcast 2024 with your help, listeners! Carolyn Daughters 13:21 Sarah, you've read Rebecca? Sarah Harrison 13:23 I have read Rebecca. It was so important. It made the selection in our last book club of the 50 greatest novels ever written by women. So Rebecca starts off with an interesting quote: "Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again." Here a young bride is haunted by the lingering shadow of her husband's first wife at the eerie Manderley estate. Secrets, jealousy, suspense, and I will say a bunch of rhododendrons in this chilling tale of Love and deception. This is the classic Gothic suspense novel, Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier. Carolyn Daughters 14:08 It won the Anthony Award for Best Novel of the Century. That's not too shabby. Sarah Harrison 14:12 Novel of the century. Yeah, if you look at a list of important books, important mysteries, or just straight important fiction, Rebecca bleeds over. It's on all the lists. Rebecca's on there. Carolyn Daughters 14:26 When Sarah and I were curating this list, we ended up leaving a lot of books on the cutting floor. Some books were initially in play, some came in and some came out. We landed on this list eventually. We did a couple things that I think are interesting. We included a book by Ethel Lina White, called The Wheel Spins, 1936. It's the basis of Alfred Hitchcock's film, The Lady Vanishes. Sarah Harrison 14:59 That's one to watch. Carolyn Daughters 14:59 Yes. It's lesser known novel for sure. We've also included Death in the Stocks, which is by Georgette Heyer. It's a regency romance, which is a sub-genre of the mystery and thriller genre. It's going to be very much golden age. It's set in a quaint English village. Because it's got this Regency romance twist on it, we wanted to incorporate this book. I don't know about you, Sarah, but I'm super excited about putting a spotlight on a couple of these female authors who are lesser known. This will be a key element of being the best mystery podcast 2024. Sarah Harrison 15:51 Yeah, I think Rebecca is pretty well known, but there are certainly others that aren't. And I'm pretty excited as well about sub-genres. We've been talking a lot about sub-genres right now. And we're still pretty early in the history. So there's regency romance. There's locked room. We just said that for Rebecca, there's Gothic suspense. Now, we've read a few locked room mysteries already. And it seems like locked room mysteries could solidly be developing as a sub-genre by this point. Are things like regency romance and gothic mystery their own sub-genres yet? Or is that just as we look backward? Were these the first? Are they the originators? Carolyn Daughters 16:33 I think they're the biggest and best. But I think you could argue that even Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey is a gothic thriller. Now, it turns out to be a wink and a nod. But I mean, there's The Mystery of Udolpho. Sarah Harrison 16:55 We read that in the book club. Carolyn Daughters 16:57 That book that preceded me. Sarah Harrison 16:59 Yeah, it did. Well, it's nine years. It was a long-running book club. But you know, looking back, we'll be at this for probably the next 20 years. Carolyn Daughters 17:10 There are precursors, but the books being published in 1934-1939 are very much influenced by the mystery genre, which has evolved very rapidly since Poe, since Arthur Conan Doyle, and certainly with Agatha Christie and others. They're all going to be influenced by that sense of pacing and timing and red herrings and the big reveal. All of this, I think, is what makes them part of this list. Sarah Harrison 17:46 Yeah, noir. That's another another sub-genre we've been getting into as part of our best mystery podcast 2024 reading list. Carolyn Daughters 17:50 Yeah. I mean, here's one I have not read yet: The Postman Always Rings Twice. Sarah Harrison 17:55 Isn't that a movie as well? I swear I've heard of it. Carolyn Daughters 17:58 It is, and I saw that movie, weirdly, when I was a child. Apparently there were there were no limits to what I could watch on cable. Sarah Harrison 18:10 It's a pretty old movie, I think. Carolyn Daughters 18:13 It was in the '70s, I think. Jessica Lange and ... what's his name? Oh yeah, Jack Nicholson. Sarah Harrison 18:29 You might have heard of him. Carolyn Daughters 18:31 I might be wrong, but I think they're the actors in it. I mean, I was shocked as a child as to what I was watching. But I didn't change the channel. Sarah Harrison 18:42 Of course not. As secrets unravel, two lovers are drawn deeper into a web of crime, leading to a shocking and morally ambiguous climax. That sounds totally child friendly. Carolyn Daughters 18:52 Yeah. I was probably like nine. Like what am I watching? Why was there no child lock on this cable station. Another thing that's really interesting is we've got a couple adventure thriller stories. We have Rogue Male written by a guy named ... Sarah Harrison 19:18 That one cracks me up ... Carolyn Daughters 19:19 Geoffrey Household. Sarah Harrison 19:24 He has a funny name, and he names the book a funny name. Carolyn Daughters 19:27 The Times UK called it the "best escape in pursuit story yet written with lip-chewing tension right to the end." Sarah Harrison 19:35 That phrase is not used enough to describe tension. Carolyn Daughters 19:38 "Lip chewing," yeah. And then we'll be reading The Mask of Dimitrios. Eric Ambler is credited with paving the way for writers like John le Carré, Len Deighton, and Robert Ludlum. It's one of Time Magazine's 100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books of All Time. Sarah Harrison 19:59 Awesome. So you mentioned another list of the 100 best mystery books of all time. Carolyn Daughters 19:59 To curate our list, I combed through all the different lists. Everything was potentially in play. And then you and I made a lot of decisions. We did some back and forth and really tried to figure out what made the most sense for our list. Sarah Harrison 20:24 Yeah, our last book of the year 2024, And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, is actually the best selling mystery crime novel of all time. That's all time, folks. Carolyn Daughters 20:36 It's a shocker. There are a couple, I think, not very good film versions out there. There's a more recent film version that I thought was amazing. It's multi part, it's maybe three or four parts or something like that. It's really, really well done. I was super impressed with it. Sarah Harrison 21:01 Very cool. Carolyn Daughters 21:01 When we get to the end of the year, Sarah, we should watch that version of And Then There Were None. I think it really honors the book and brings these characters to life. We spend enough time with them that we get a sense of who they are. The actors are very talented. The script is really good. The setting feels appropriately ominous. I think it's a great way to end the year, which will hopefully help Tea, Tonic & Toxin become the best mystery podcast 2024. Sarah Harrison 21:27 Awesome. Yeah. I'm very excited. So in addition to all of the new books we're reading. We're about to start our third year of the Tea Tonic & Toxin podcast, which feels amazing. Every year we're trying to add new things with the podcast. Do you want to talk about any of the new things we'll be doing this year. Carolyn Daughters 21:52 For starters, I'm going to learn what a podcast is. Sarah Harrison 21:57 If you are not sure what she means by that, listen to our retrospective. Carolyn Daughters 22:01 As was discovered earlier this week, when I thought I was witnessing podcasting. And Sarah explained to me, it was a stage show. Sarah Harrison 22:09 With signage and lights. Carolyn Daughters 22:12 I'm going to learn a little bit more about how this magic happens. Because I put these headphones on, and then eventually a recording appears. But in all seriousness, I do want to learn that technical side of it a little bit more this year, because I feel in the dark about it. I feel like okay, I've gotten my feet under me, I understand a lot of the different parts about what we're doing and how we're doing it. And so we could probably back each other up a little bit more, though we are very compatible in the sense that a lot of the stuff I do doesn't cross over with what you do. And so we work really well together. However, I think we could back each other up maybe a little better. Sarah Harrison 22:56 I agree. I've been trying to dabble a little bit more and understand kind of how you set up the social media side and maybe contribute more. Like we talked about in the retrospective episode, Carolyn's a wonderful collaborator, but I don't want to be in the position of being like, "make my idea happen on the Facebook." I want to also be able to just go do the things on Facebook. Carolyn Daughters 23:25 Yeah. And so you've thought of a number of things that we want to do in 2024. Sarah Harrison 23:32 The ideas are endless. One of the things we are definitely doing is interviewing more authors. So that's something that we're really excited about. You know, we had the opportunity last year to interview a couple of authors on their new books coming out. That was so much fun that we thought we would find some more. We've especially been focusing on the Rocky Mountain region. Carolyn Daughters 24:04 We've started to become more involved with the Rocky Mountain Mystery Writers of America. There are so many talented mystery, detective story, and thriller writers writing today, and a lot of them are right here in this region. We're currently setting up interviews as part of our goal of becoming the best mystery podcast 2024, with several amazing writers. I'm really excited. Sarah Harrison 24:31 That's going to be fun. And I think it's only going to add to the book club aspect. You know, bringing in the modern heritage of mystery as we continue to go along through our curated list. So that's something very exciting. I've been toying a little bit -- and listeners, feel free to give feedback. I've been toying a little bit with sound clips during the second half of 2023. We're starting to do put clips on the social media of sound. We want to start expanding into video clips, as well, at some point. It's so funny situation. Well, my daughter, I think, is done breastfeeding finally. So maybe an increment of time will free up to start experimenting with some other techniques. Carolyn Daughters 25:22 I think that's great. For me, this past year has been a lot of process of getting to understand how to interview guests and integrate them in as seamless a way as possible. Because, Sarah, you and I know each other well. We know how to talk about these books, even when we're figuring stuff out. We don't know all the answers. It's not that. It's that we feel comfortable asking each other the questions and trying to figure it out. We're constantly bringing guests and others in, and that can be amazing, or it could be the opposite, depending. Fortunately, our interviews have gone extremely well in 2023. But figuring out that magic formula of making the guest feel like they're part of this conversation and making sure that the three of us have this engagement and this really organic dialogue, I think I want to work on that a little bit in 2024. Because this is the direction we're heading in, right? We're bringing other voices into this conversation. I want to make sure it's done in a really smart and interesting way. Sarah Harrison 26:38 And, as always, voices we want to bring into the conversation include all of our listeners. We're trying to work on more ever more ways that you can engage with the podcast, make suggestions, make comments, put your feelings out there about the book, wherever possible. We want to bring our listeners into the podcast. It is a book club, in my mind, first and foremost, and book clubs are about conversations amongst folks. We want to bring people into the conversation in as many ways as possible so we can know what they're thinking about all of this great literature. We're exciting about becoming the best mystery podcast 2024! Carolyn Daughters 27:18 Sarah, we started the Tea Tonic & Toxin book club and podcast because when we read books, we want to talk to other people about them, especially when they're really awesome books. We put the book down at the end, and we're like, Oh, my gosh, who do I talk to about this book? That's the genesis of the idea of the book club. That's what this is, it's our voices, our guests' voices, our interviewees' voices, but also listeners, your voices. If you have thoughts you want to share, we'll share those thoughts on the air. Sarah Harrison 27:56 You know, during the pandemic, as I think we're all aware, it became hard to do the in-person dialogues the way we always did. But the idea is how do you make a book, book club on a podcast. How do you have a dialogue so that we're still getting the conversation? If you recall, in our former book club, I was almost militantly democratic, if that makes any sense. I want to hear from everybody. Every single person answers the question, because it's always so interesting to me to hear what everyone's saying and thinking about it. It makes the book a little bit more real after you read it. And then you can have some thoughts. Who can I say my thoughts to? What thoughts can I hear from? So in 2024, we're looking for more engagement. I'm seeing other ideas we want to throw out there. We've talked about actually physically ordering the books, so if you have an interest in our curating the books for you, and your getting a set of the books quarterly or biyearly, let us know. That's an idea we're toying with. We've talked about subscription boxes themed on the books. We've talked about all kinds of things. One thing we are going forward with is a new sticker curated set. Carolyn Daughters 29:32 I'm looking forward to it. Sarah Harrison 29:33 Yeah, I'm about halfway through curating the Victorian era in stickers. That'll be fun. So look for that coming out in 2024. Carolyn Daughters 29:44 In 2024, we're also looking for sponsors. So we have amazing sponsors currently. We're looking for more sponsors. If you want an on-air shout out, all you have to do is help sponsor this very small organiznation. It's Sarah and me. We're putting a whole lot of heart and soul into this thing. And so you can help us make sure we've got this thing up and running. We've got all kinds of hard costs, and our sponsors can help us out there. In turn, we're going to give you all kinds of things. Yes, you'll get your information posted on our website. We're going to give you a shout outs on air and all kinds of exposure on social media. Sarah Harrison 30:32 Yeah, that would be excellent. I'm looking forward to 2024 -- and to having the best mystery podcast 2024 for our amazing listeners. Carolyn Daughters 30:39 I am as well. You can find all our 2024 books on our website, teatonicandtoxin.com. You can also comment, weigh in, and follow along with what we're reading and discussing @teatonicandtoxin on Instagram and Facebook. And you can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Sarah Harrison 31:01 We're everywhere. We are on all platforms. If you find a platform we're not on, tell us so we can get over there. Carolyn Daughters 31:09 Because we are not aware of that platform. Sarah Harrison 31:11 So get your books. I'm getting mine. Get them with our Amazon links or order them on the eBay or find a local bookstore. Or if you want, tell us that you want to get them from us, and we'll curate you a little vintage set and send them your way. Just another service provided by the best mystery podcast 2024! Until our next episode, please, please stay mysterious. Transcribed by https://otter.ai