Tomorrow the first of my podcast series, The DownUnder Mystery Club, launches. You can find the trailer (and tomorrow the first episode) by going to the podcast tab on the menu at the top of this page. The podcast traces echoes of real Aussie mysteries into fiction. Hopefully you’ll learn about some intriguing Aussie mysteries…
Books
The butler did it
The butler did it is one of the most overused mystery cliches – to the point it is rarely ever used these days. After all, as soon as a reader (or viewer if it’s a tv show or movie) see a butler, they immediately joke “the butler did it”. Below are some of the mystery…
What is a red herring?
Nearly every crime book will make use of red herrings, particularly mystery books. But did you know that red herrings can be used in any genre? And when used well, they create the set-up for a delightful surprise twist at the end. By definition, a red herring is a deliberate misdirection designed to mislead the…
The joy of rereading favourite books
I wrote a brief post about rereading back in 2017, after reading an article that was rather disparaging about people who reread books. This time the article that popped into my stream was about how rereading a book is a powerful thing (my side of the fence!). The article talked about the psychology of why…
My link to Mary Poppins…
is that I was born in the same town as P.L. Travers (born Helen Lyndon Goff in 1899) – the author of Mary Poppins. Yes, she was Australian! She moved to England at the age of 24. I learnt of this when I was a teenager and was thrilled that she also came from my…