Nothing for a year, then two in consecutive weekends — it’s a podcastpalooza!
11th September 2025 saw the publication not just of Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife (2025) by Martin Edwards, but also the new non-fiction book from John Curran, The Murder Game: Play, Puzzles and the Golden Age (2025). And, like Martin last week, John has been kind enough to join me to talk about the writing of the book and much more besides.
The essential tenet of John’s book — that a deliberate, observed, and expectation-governed element of rule-based observation forms a central pole holding up the tent that is the game played with Golden Age detective fiction — won’t, I think, be too controversial to anyone reading this. But to see him examine it so thoroughly in print, and to have stirred into the mix not just examples of ludic aspects from the book, but also commentary from critics both at the time and since, really is quite delightful if, like me, you’ve committed far too much of your life to reading books in this genre — time that could have been easily wasted on far less important things.
So, we get into the book’s origins, discuss some of the principles herein, digress into the career of S.S. van Dine, and generally pick apart the game in all its glory. Hopefully this proves an enjoyable listen, and please do rush out and buy the book once you’re done listening.
You can listen to the podcast on iTunes here, on Spotify here, or by using the player below.
Thanks to John for his time, to Jonny Berliner for the music, and to you, my increasingly patient audience, as these episodes drip out from invisible Event Towers at unpredictable intervals. And, no, no podcast next week; I originally had plans to release one per weekend in September, but they fell through and so not even I know when the next one will be.
In the meantime, if you’re interested in the GAD-focussed cryptic crosswords I wrote that got a mention in the above, it turns out there are actually three of them:
So that might keep some of you entertained, at least.
The Invisible Event 
Loved this, I always think podcasts are too long, but not this one, total joy to hear you both of you chatting. I was chatting back to you both, either agreeing or arguing. Splendid stuff.
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You’re most kind!
I worried this might be a bit long, but it was so much fun chatting with John and I didn’t know what else I could cut out…so 80 minutes it had to be 🙂
Lovely to hear that at least one person doesn’t lament that decision.
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Hi Jim 👋 thanks for the shout-out 😀
Count me as someone who never knew about this book until your podcast! It’s so far up my street it’s breached the perimeter and is scrambling in through the window, so thanks for bringing it to my attention. Books about books often get pride of place on my shelves.
That’s an extremely good lineup of books to go in-depth into. Makes me really excited. I’ll have to be careful of spoilers for other books but it sounds like it will be worth it.
RE: Some of the Carrs. I agree with John Curran about the ending to Seat of the Scornful, but I’ve kind of accepted becoming furious about Dr Fell’s decision making as a feature of the books rather than a bug at this point…
In Judas Window, it’s been a while but isn’t the objection raised, or rather solved, in the book? Trying to avoid spoilers… I seem to remember the killer inducing the victim to take a certain action which helps overcome the difficulty.
PS: For the record, I do think Philo Vance is a total dick. But at least in the first book, there seemed to be a reason behind it.
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It almost seemed too good to be true, that someone had written this book which so perfectly intersected with both what I had read and how I felt about so much GAD. I think it spoiled maybe one book I hadn’t read, but since it spoils quite a few books — some in more detail than others — I managed to forget precisely what it was and so I think I’ll be okay when I come to reading that particular title.
As for Carr…well, I’m not sure I agree with a lot of Carr’s personal perspectives, but when his books are good they bother me less 🙂 The fact that he occasionally just throws a wrench like that intothe mix merely keeps things fresh and exciting.
And Vance — yeah, I can see how people would find him annoying. But I do really like him, and I’m as surprised by that as anyone. As I think I said in one of my reviews somewhere, I like that he’s human enough to admit when he’s baffled…even if that bafflement has, thus far, been in at least two cases when the answer was screamingly obvious. But maybe I’ll feel differently when I’ve read all his books, since I understand there’s a downturn and he might get a little less well-realised as things progress. Time will tell…
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