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AJ Blythe: Welcome to the Down Under Mystery Club.
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AJ Blythe: I’m and joining me is fellow mystery author Ava Ness.
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AJ Blythe: Every week we dive into curious cases, cracking good reads and all things mystery.
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AJ Blythe: Grab a cuppa, settle in and let’s get sleuthing.
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AJ Blythe: Hello dear listeners, I’m AJ and I’m delighted to be joined again by Ava Ness.
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Ava Ness: Hi AJ.
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AJ Blythe: In a moment, I’m going to outline an Aussie mystery.
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AJ Blythe: I’ve done the research.
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Ava Ness: And I’m coming in blind.
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AJ Blythe: After we’ve discussed the case, we’ll talk about the mystery novels it brings to mind.
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AJ Blythe: Today’s mystery is really a series of mysteries that run along the same theme, secret tunnels supposedly running beneath the city of Canberra, Australia’s capital.
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AJ Blythe: It’s a mystery I hadn’t heard of until I moved here, but I’m sure everyone local to Canberra must be familiar with at least some of the stories.
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AJ Blythe: Are you, Ava?
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Ava Ness: I did grow up here, but I haven’t really heard that much about these tunnels.
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Ava Ness: I heard the rumours, but I’m really interested to hear what you have dug up.
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AJ Blythe: Well, I’ve done my research and I’m going to outline a few of the most persistent tunnel mysteries today.
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AJ Blythe: Because Canberra is Australia’s capital, I guess it makes sense that this is where a lot of the rumours fall, but Canberra was a location chosen and specifically built to be the nation’s capital.
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AJ Blythe: So I think some of the rumours come about because they think it was all planned to have all this secretness under our city.
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AJ Blythe: According to these decades of rumours, there’s a whole series of secrets hidden beneath us.
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AJ Blythe: I’m going to start with Australia National University, which is also known as ANU.
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AJ Blythe: And the story goes that a network of tunnels run beneath the campus.
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AJ Blythe: And depending on who’s telling the story, they’re either Cold War bunkers, secret research facilities, spy headquarters, or passages linking key buildings.
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AJ Blythe: Some versions claim they’re large enough to drive through, while others insist they were built to survive a nuclear attack.
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Ava Ness: Oh my goodness, no, I definitely didn’t know anything to do with ANU.
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Ava Ness: I’ve heard of some other tunnels, but not ANU.
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Ava Ness: My goodness, there must be tunnels everywhere in Canberra that we’re not aware of.
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AJ Blythe: Well, that’s part of the rumour is that there’s actually a series of networks that run all the way around the sort of middle part of Canberra where all our, you know, public servants and major buildings and everything are.
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AJ Blythe: I’ve got five and that was the first one.
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AJ Blythe: So the second one is the Department of Defence.
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AJ Blythe: And for those who don’t know, the Department of Defence really occupies almost a whole tiny little suburb in Canberra called Russell.
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AJ Blythe: And the rumours are that at the Russell offices, there are secure underground corridors that connect buildings and allow military personnel to move unseen.
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AJ Blythe: And the more elaborate version suggests that they actually go further than just the Russell Precinct and link a much larger network beneath Canberra going through to the War Memorial and across the lake to Parliament House.
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Ava Ness: Well, I wish there was space for cars.
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Ava Ness: I think for the traffic reductions, especially at the moment with Commonwealth Avenue Bridge down to one lane due to all the construction work for the next two years, we need these tunnels to be opened.
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AJ Blythe: I know, wouldn’t it make it so much easier if they could just expand them a little bit and we just, you know, zoomed under the lake?
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Ava Ness: So much easier and so much more cost effective.
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AJ Blythe: The next one is Old Parliament House.
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AJ Blythe: And again, for any listeners who aren’t familiar, Canberra has two Parliament houses.
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AJ Blythe: We have the original one that was built when Canberra was designated to be our capital, referred to now as Old Parliament House, and it now hosts a museum, the Museum of Australian Democracy.
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AJ Blythe: We also have New Parliament House, and of course there are tunnel rumours associated with both.
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AJ Blythe: Probably the one that has the biggest focus of Canberra’s tunnel mythology is Old Parliament House.
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AJ Blythe: And stories tell of hidden passageways beneath the building, emergency escape routes for prime ministers and secret corridors used to move politicians and sensitive documents.
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Ava Ness: See now I’m really interested in this because the next book I’m going to write is actually going to be set.
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Ava Ness: at the opening of the original Parliament House.
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AJ Blythe: Oh, really?
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AJ Blythe: Well, in that case, you might also be fascinated to know, and I learned this in part of my research, I wasn’t going to actually talk about it, but apparently in 1927, when they opened new Parliament or the old Parliament House, they expected thousands of Australians to descend upon the city.
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AJ Blythe: So they catered with, you know, Aussie’s love of meat pies, thousands and thousands of meat pies, but didn’t get the number and were left with a lot of leftovers.
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AJ Blythe: There’s a few theories that they were buried
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AJ Blythe: in some of these tunnels.
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AJ Blythe: Another theory is that under our Treasury building, they were at the time constructing and building tunnels there and that the foundations of the Treasury building, the reason they’ve had so many problems with them has been because they’re actually layered with thousands of meat pies.
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Ava Ness: My goodness.
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Ava Ness: Well, thank you for that little bit of information for my research.
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Ava Ness: I used to actually work in the Treasury building many, many years ago and so did my dad.
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Ava Ness: I’ve been down as low as the basement where the computers used to be back in the 70s.
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Ava Ness: I used to go and visit him when I was a kid, but I never caught sight of any tunnels.
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AJ Blythe: Oh, there you go.
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AJ Blythe: I did.
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AJ Blythe: go down that little rabbit hole slightly.
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AJ Blythe: And apparently part of the problem was the aquifers underneath to do with the foundations and they had to repile them and do extra work.
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AJ Blythe: But I like the conspiracy of, tunnels filled with meat pies instead.
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Ava Ness: Yeah, that’s not what I was expecting you were going to say.
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AJ Blythe: And then of course, after old Parliament House, we have new Parliament House, which is actually built on a hill right behind our old Parliament House.
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AJ Blythe: And so of course it’s on a much grander location so it has much grander theories about the tunnels.
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AJ Blythe: Urban legend or mystery that there is a vast subterranean level beneath the visible building and it has bunkers, command centres, a secure transport system and hidden chambers designed to be used for national emergencies.
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AJ Blythe: And some versions of the rumours say that there are entire areas that are inaccessible even to most staff.
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AJ Blythe: which is probably true in how some of these rumours start.
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Ava Ness: Yeah, it’s definitely possible.
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Ava Ness: There are tunnels, extensive tunnel systems under Parliament House, the new one.
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Ava Ness: Actually see those in the ABC documentary series hosted by Annabelle Crabbe In The House, take you downstairs into that underground part of Parliament House and then they do sort of tours through it and how the catering and the cleaners and
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Ava Ness: and everyone else uses that underground network, but I don’t think they touch on the possibility that there’s further hidden areas.
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Ava Ness: But I suppose if there’s some areas that are known, there’s always a possibility there’s some that are unknown.
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AJ Blythe: And I think sometimes when there is a little bit of knowledge, then people fill in the gaps and make these rumours.
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AJ Blythe: And I think that leads us into probably what I think is the most famous rumour of all, and that is the tunnel beneath Lake Burley Griffin, which we’ve already touched on.
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AJ Blythe: And this is 1 for decades that, you know, Canberrans have talked about this secret passage that runs under the lake.
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AJ Blythe: You know, theories are at links Parliament House, Defence, the Lodge, which is where our Prime Minister lives and other key government sites.
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AJ Blythe: In some versions, it’s even a miniature railway.
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Ava Ness: Oh my goodness.
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AJ Blythe: With a little railway line.
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AJ Blythe: in others, it’s a secure evacuation route reserved for politicians and military leaders.
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AJ Blythe: But this alleged tunnel has definitely become one of Canberra’s most persistent mysteries.
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Ava Ness: I think I can understand where that would come from because, you know, Lake Belly Griffin is a man-made lake.
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Ava Ness: So it is feasible that tunnels could have been created when it was being built.
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AJ Blythe: That’s right.
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AJ Blythe: And there are little stories, that cover the lake.
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AJ Blythe: So for example, when they were building the bridge you referred to earlier that they’re currently, redoing and expanding and so on, when they were putting in the pylons for that bridge originally, apparently they were pushing through and they came to some sort of cavern slash tunnel and it went, it just fell and they could hear it clanking as it went down and then they didn’t hear it hit the bottom.
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AJ Blythe: That is definitely how some of the mysteries, I think, have started.
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Ava Ness: Look, there’s definitely a lot of mysterious things in the lake.
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Ava Ness: I don’t know if there’s tunnels, but I can understand how people might have come to that conclusion.
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AJ Blythe: That’s right.
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AJ Blythe: Well, before the lake was created with, you know, with our dam, it was known to have a limestone
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AJ Blythe: geology, which lends itself to a lot of small caves and so on.
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AJ Blythe: So I’m sure if we looked at the history, there would be some places like that already existing in the lake, which again would help create these rumours of tunnels and caverns to hide in.
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Ava Ness: Yes, this is a lot of food for thought for me.
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Ava Ness: I think I’m definitely going to have to write these tunnels into this book.
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Ava Ness: Actually, most of it is actually going to be set at Yarralumla House, which is the
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Ava Ness: home of the Governor General.
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Ava Ness: But lots of things to think about in terms of tunnels and perhaps connecting it also to the lodge and to Parliament House.
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AJ Blythe: Well that’s made me quite excited to read your book so you’re going to have to hurry up and write it now.
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Ava Ness: I’ve got one more to finish first.
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AJ Blythe: I think that whether it involves spies or politicians, secret trains or Cold War bunkers, they all have a common theme.
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AJ Blythe: And that is the belief that under our carefully planned surface is a hidden world that’s only known to those on the inside.
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AJ Blythe: And I think that’s why the rumours have survived for so long, because a city built to govern a nation seems like exactly the sort of place where secrets ought to be buried underground.
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Ava Ness: And look, I think the reality is that
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Ava Ness: most of the time the business of government is pretty boring.
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Ava Ness: So the possibility of spicing it up and making it interesting with some secret tunnels is, it’s just good fun.
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Ava Ness: Makes it just more interesting, more colorful.
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AJ Blythe: It does.
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AJ Blythe: And I think that, for anyone who isn’t Australian, Canberra tends to be looked down on because we are a city of politics.
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AJ Blythe: It’s why we’re here.
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AJ Blythe: It’s the governing city for the nation.
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AJ Blythe: So people always, you know, kind of look down on us.
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AJ Blythe: So I think it’s nice for us to be able to spice up our city by having these stories
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AJ Blythe: and rumors and mysteries that go along with it.
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Ava Ness: Absolutely.
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AJ Blythe: Unfortunately, while the rumors are nice and colorful, the reality is often far more practical.
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AJ Blythe: So I thought I’d just run through each of those mysteries and give an explanation as to why they’ve started and maybe hint at why they persist.
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Ava Ness: Yeah.
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AJ Blythe: ANU and National University is it does have underground spaces, you know, the normal service tunnels and basement infrastructure under some buildings.
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AJ Blythe: But University House is probably the building that has had the focus of rumours because it does have a substantial basement and it was built into the Cold War era.
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AJ Blythe: So most of the underground areas exist for maintenance, storage and building services rather than the spy activity that it’s rumoured to have.
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AJ Blythe: But the service tunnel actually forms a square.
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AJ Blythe: Apparently, I haven’t obviously been in there myself.
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AJ Blythe: No.
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AJ Blythe: But I have seen photos of what it is like in there.
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AJ Blythe: It is as high as the roof of a house, like a ceiling of a house.
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AJ Blythe: It is lined with bricks and there are doors down the corridors.
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AJ Blythe: It is lined with the services, but building it and constructing it completely with bricks, which at the time were hard to come by, does suggest that perhaps there was another purpose in mind when it was built.
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AJ Blythe: And the theory is that it has something to do with the fact that at the time the Korean War was happening and the USA and Soviet Union had both developed hydrogen bombs.
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AJ Blythe: And so while it was being built, it was suggested that this was going to be a safe place should, bombs be aimed towards Australia and Canberra that people could go down in this brick lined sort of service tunnel as a bunker.
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Ava Ness: Yeah, it’s interesting to think about that it was, you know, during that time, I guess there was a lot of fear and worry, that would be a comfort to have had that kind of tunnel system perhaps, but it doesn’t seem like that is exactly what happened.
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Ava Ness: I’m pretty sure if it was the case it probably would be a tourist attraction today that people could go down and have a look at it.
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Ava Ness: Yes, it might have been created that way but it doesn’t really seem like that it was ever a tunnel system that from what I understand it’s just a corridor.
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Ava Ness: that leads to nowhere.
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AJ Blythe: Pretty much with great big pipes and heating ducts running along the walls.
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Ava Ness: Yes, I’m just actually having a look at it.
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Ava Ness: There’s a good ABC news article that perhaps you did as part of your research and I’m just looking at the image of the actual tunnel using quotation marks.
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Ava Ness: and it just doesn’t look really that much exciting.
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Ava Ness: I think we should just stick with the story because that’s much more interesting.
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AJ Blythe: I think the story is definitely more interesting.
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AJ Blythe: And sadly, that is also the case for Department of Defence.
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Ava Ness: Yes, that looks even worse.
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AJ Blythe: It’s very well known that there is an underground pedestrian tunnel that links the buildings.
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AJ Blythe: It lets staff move without having to go outside in the cold.
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AJ Blythe: But I think the real reason is because they don’t have to go in and out of the buildings, which means passing in and out of security checkpoints.
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Ava Ness: Yeah.
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Ava Ness: I just read that about the cold.
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Ava Ness: I was laughing to myself.
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Ava Ness: I mean, it’s not Canada.
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Ava Ness: The camper is absolutely freezing.
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Ava Ness: I mean, barely get under 10 degrees during winter, during the day.
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Ava Ness: I think we’re a bit tougher than that.
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Ava Ness: We can walk between two buildings.
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Ava Ness: But just looking at the picture of that pedestrian tunnel for defence, that reminds me of Maxwell Smart Get Smart.
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Ava Ness: That’s exactly what that corridor looks like.
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AJ Blythe: It does actually, doesn’t it?
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AJ Blythe: Just the concrete with the yellow paint to show the way and yeah, So it is a square rectangle of concrete with some lines painted on the floor.
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Ava Ness: And the fluorescent lighting.
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AJ Blythe: Yeah, it’s very cold and stark.
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Ava Ness: I think I’d rather walk outside.
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AJ Blythe: I think I would too.
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AJ Blythe: It’s probably the security checkpoint.
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Ava Ness: Yeah.
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AJ Blythe: It’s a secure tunnel, I guess, because it’s going from within a building to within a building.
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AJ Blythe: The next mystery that I thought I’d revisit is Old Parliament House.
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AJ Blythe: Now, obviously, like all the buildings in Canberra, it has service tunnels that run beneath part of the building.
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AJ Blythe: But because of its age,
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AJ Blythe: Some of these services were for a pneumatic tube communication network that transported documents in canisters between offices and departments before the digital age.
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AJ Blythe: Probably seen them in old movies, but people wouldn’t really be familiar with them being used today.
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AJ Blythe: There were also trenches built outside of Parliament House again during World War II in case we were bombed by aircraft.
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AJ Blythe: And some were roofed in like bunkers for people to hide in during an air raid.
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AJ Blythe: I think those have probably also helped form this idea that there are tunnels because there are photographs of these bunkers being built.
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AJ Blythe: There’s also stories of politicians travelling through secret railway tunnels and being blindfolded and transported beneath Canberra, but none of those have ever been substantiated and really are just part of the rumour mill.
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AJ Blythe: Although everyone in Canberra does seem to have heard from someone who knew someone who has been in the secret railway tunnel.
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Ava Ness: Yes.
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AJ Blythe: It’s just one of those really enduring mysteries.
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Ava Ness: It absolutely is.
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AJ Blythe: And that leads again into New Parliament House, which as you’ve already said, has an extensive underground level, but usually occupied by offices.
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AJ Blythe: There are storage areas, plant rooms, loading docks, building services.
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AJ Blythe: And because it is actually on a hill that has nothing else on it, I guess there’s a lot more space underneath the building for things like structures below ground.
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AJ Blythe: And there’s probably a lot more than people don’t realise are there that are actually used on a day to day basis.
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AJ Blythe: But of course, that helps fuel the rumours of secret bunkers and hidden chambers.
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AJ Blythe: But really, they’re just a normal functioning part of a large, secure government building.
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Ava Ness: That’s right.
00:16:08.000 –> 00:16:17.000
Ava Ness: And I think that documentary with Annabelle Craig is actually called The House, not In the House, but it’s a really great documentary.
00:16:17.000 –> 00:16:18.000
Ava Ness: I think there’s only about 6 parts.
00:16:18.000 –> 00:16:20.000
Ava Ness: My father-in-law is actually featured in it.
00:16:20.000 –> 00:16:22.000
Ava Ness: He was a security guard for a long time at Parliament House.
00:16:22.000 –> 00:16:23.000
AJ Blythe: Oh, exciting.
00:16:23.000 –> 00:16:27.000
Ava Ness: And had actually taken the kids down through a lot of these tunnels.
00:16:27.000 –> 00:16:34.000
Ava Ness: And it’s really interesting just to see how extensive that tunnel network is underneath the main building.
00:16:34.000 –> 00:16:39.000
AJ Blythe: Oh, if that series is still available, we’ll put the link into the notes for this episode.
00:16:39.000 –> 00:16:41.000
Ava Ness: Yes, it’s on ABC iView.
00:16:41.000 –> 00:16:42.000
AJ Blythe: Lovely.
00:16:42.000 –> 00:16:47.000
AJ Blythe: And then of course the biggest rumour of all, the Lake Burley Griffin Tunnel.
00:16:47.000 –> 00:16:54.000
AJ Blythe: It’s the enduring legend that the tunnel runs beneath the lake, linking Parliament House with Defence and other government sites.
00:16:54.000 –> 00:16:59.000
AJ Blythe: There has been no evidence of a secret transport tunnel beneath the lake.
00:16:59.000 –> 00:17:06.000
AJ Blythe: However, a photo held in the National Archives of Australia shows workers in a sewage tunnel that does run under the lake.
00:17:06.000 –> 00:17:10.000
AJ Blythe: And in the photo is a rail track with a cart on it.
00:17:10.000 –> 00:17:25.000
AJ Blythe: So the story appears to have grown from a combination of real underground infrastructure elsewhere in Canberra, the existence of secure government facilities, known tunnels, and the natural tendency for secrecy to breed speculation.
00:17:25.000 –> 00:17:28.000
Ava Ness: Well, I kind of feel like if they aren’t, what was wrong with them?
00:17:28.000 –> 00:17:29.000
Ava Ness: Why didn’t they do it?
00:17:29.000 –> 00:17:32.000
Ava Ness: Because it seems like the perfect opportunity.
00:17:32.000 –> 00:17:35.000
Ava Ness: If you’re going to build a lake, build some tunnels underneath it.
00:17:35.000 –> 00:17:36.000
AJ Blythe: Yeah, exactly.
00:17:36.000 –> 00:17:38.000
AJ Blythe: If there’s nothing there, it is just
00:17:38.000 –> 00:17:42.000
AJ Blythe: dry normal ground, why not put the infrastructure in and then flood it?
00:17:42.000 –> 00:17:45.000
AJ Blythe: Because how perfect would that be?
00:17:45.000 –> 00:17:46.000
Ava Ness: Oh, absolutely.
00:17:46.000 –> 00:17:48.000
Ava Ness: Anyway, we’ll never know, I don’t think.
00:17:48.000 –> 00:17:53.000
AJ Blythe: No, and I think that’s how the rumours persist because why wouldn’t they have done it?
00:17:53.000 –> 00:18:01.000
AJ Blythe: Yeah, I mean, I think the common thread is obviously that we do have tunnel storage areas, service tunnels and so on that exist.
00:18:01.000 –> 00:18:05.000
AJ Blythe: These sort of practical tunnels have been transferred by rumour.
00:18:05.000 –> 00:18:16.000
AJ Blythe: into the secretness that comes with having government operations and the associated sort of covert spy activities that we all associate with government.
00:18:16.000 –> 00:18:29.000
AJ Blythe: And I think the reality is a lot less dramatic than the legends, but it reveals, I think, something equally interesting in how easily ordinary infrastructure can become the foundation for extraordinary stories.
00:18:29.000 –> 00:18:40.000
Ava Ness: As I said before, I think it’s much more interesting and entertaining to think about what might be secretly than what probably is in reality.
00:18:40.000 –> 00:18:41.000
AJ Blythe: Yeah, exactly.
00:18:41.000 –> 00:18:43.000
AJ Blythe: And I think with that we can say case closed.
00:18:43.000 –> 00:18:48.000
Ava Ness: Case closed.
00:18:48.000 –> 00:18:55.000
AJ Blythe: I think today’s mystery is perfect for a mystery novel and I can think of quite a few mystery books that have used secret tunnels as part of their plot.
00:18:55.000 –> 00:19:06.000
AJ Blythe: In fact, the earliest I remember is a Hardy Boys book that my brother had when we were kids and that I stole and read and very creatively called The Secret of the Lost Tunnel.
00:19:06.000 –> 00:19:07.000
AJ Blythe: So what about you, Ava?
00:19:07.000 –> 00:19:08.000
Ava Ness: Definitely.
00:19:08.000 –> 00:19:14.000
Ava Ness: I spent my childhood, I feel like now when I look back, reading about secret tunnels in books.
00:19:14.000 –> 00:19:24.000
Ava Ness: Look, they’re popular in fiction because they’re just that irresistible combination of mystery, danger and discovery in a way that just naturally drives the story forward.
00:19:24.000 –> 00:19:31.000
Ava Ness: You know, once you enter a tunnel, you have to keep going and then it’s the unknown of what you’re going to find along the way or at the end of it.
00:19:31.000 –> 00:19:40.000
Ava Ness: So it’s sort of like the hidden spaces where the characters and the readers feel like they’re uncovering something that’s forbidden or forgotten.
00:19:40.000 –> 00:19:42.000
Ava Ness: And is there going to be a reward or is there going to be danger?
00:19:42.000 –> 00:19:47.000
Ava Ness: There’s just so many possibilities when you take a story into a tunnel.
00:19:47.000 –> 00:19:48.000
AJ Blythe: Oh, I agree.
00:19:48.000 –> 00:19:49.000
AJ Blythe: And they don’t always get called tunnels.
00:19:49.000 –> 00:19:54.000
AJ Blythe: You have a labyrinth or you have a secret network or a secret passage.
00:19:54.000 –> 00:20:05.000
AJ Blythe: If you think about so many stories where the old house has a secret passage or hidden stairs and they come from books from historical times right through to contemporary times.
00:20:05.000 –> 00:20:06.000
Ava Ness: I think that’s right.
00:20:06.000 –> 00:20:09.000
Ava Ness: They just automatically create suspense.
00:20:09.000 –> 00:20:11.000
Ava Ness: They’re dark, they’re enclosed.
00:20:11.000 –> 00:20:17.000
Ava Ness: Every turn could reveal a trap or an enemy or a threat or perhaps a discovery.
00:20:17.000 –> 00:20:22.000
Ava Ness: And there’s that hidden nature, the hidden secrets, hidden truths.
00:20:22.000 –> 00:20:24.000
Ava Ness: Can you escape or not?
00:20:24.000 –> 00:20:25.000
Ava Ness: Are you trapped?
00:20:25.000 –> 00:20:30.000
Ava Ness: There’s just so many things that just have good elements of storytelling when you read a book with a tunnel.
00:20:30.000 –> 00:20:35.000
Ava Ness: And I think that’s probably why so many of us have
00:20:35.000 –> 00:20:41.000
Ava Ness: such a fascination with stories that include these elements because we grew up with them.
00:20:41.000 –> 00:20:53.000
Ava Ness: We grew up, as you said, with Hardy Boys, but also with The Famous Five, Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew, all of those 60s and 70s, or I don’t know, was it also the 50s?
00:20:53.000 –> 00:21:00.000
Ava Ness: You know, those cornerstone mystery novels for children that then have carried us into adulthood.
00:21:00.000 –> 00:21:02.000
Ava Ness: across generations.
00:21:02.000 –> 00:21:08.000
Ava Ness: they all have those elements and not just those set in the real world, but also in fantasy books as well.
00:21:08.000 –> 00:21:15.000
Ava Ness: tunnels and secret passageways are a huge element of storytelling in that genre as well.
00:21:15.000 –> 00:21:16.000
AJ Blythe: Absolutely.
00:21:16.000 –> 00:21:24.000
AJ Blythe: And in fact, there’s that little bit of crossover where there’ll be rumors of a haunted house because there are secret passageways that people can move through.
00:21:24.000 –> 00:21:30.000
AJ Blythe: So people think the place is haunted because something appears and then disappears and they’re actually using the secret passageways.
00:21:30.000 –> 00:21:34.000
AJ Blythe: I just read a Jana de Leon misfortune mystery.
00:21:34.000 –> 00:21:35.000
Ava Ness: Oh yes.
00:21:35.000 –> 00:21:42.000
AJ Blythe: Has that exact premise that there’s an old house and it’s haunted because it turns out that there are secret passageways between the levels.
00:21:42.000 –> 00:21:45.000
AJ Blythe: I can’t remember the name of it, but I’ll find it.
00:21:45.000 –> 00:21:46.000
Ava Ness: Okay.
00:21:46.000 –> 00:21:48.000
AJ Blythe: I only just read it, man.
00:21:48.000 –> 00:21:53.000
AJ Blythe: One of the books that actually sprang to mind was one that I read it probably a year ago now.
00:21:53.000 –> 00:21:59.000
AJ Blythe: It was published in 2025, or maybe it was at Christmas time, by Tara Moss.
00:21:59.000 –> 00:22:04.000
AJ Blythe: And it’s the third in her mystery series with Billy Walker called The Italian Secret.
00:22:04.000 –> 00:22:11.000
AJ Blythe: And the blurb says, an old family secret leads from the streets of Sydney to Italy’s sun- drenched Neapolitan coast.
00:22:11.000 –> 00:22:17.000
AJ Blythe: In the Pacific Ocean, 1907, a girl embarks on a journey to begin a new life far from home.
00:22:17.000 –> 00:22:19.000
AJ Blythe: Naples, 1943.
00:22:19.000 –> 00:22:25.000
AJ Blythe: A woman shelters underground from a wartime air raid praying her husband will return home.
00:22:25.000 –> 00:22:27.000
AJ Blythe: Sydney, 1948.
00:22:27.000 –> 00:22:41.000
AJ Blythe: Billy Walker, returned from a stint as a wartime investigative journalist, uncovers a dusty box in her father’s old office whose contents, correspondence with a woman on the other side of the world, just might explain how they are all connected.
00:22:41.000 –> 00:22:45.000
AJ Blythe: obviously, the tunnels form part of that story.
00:22:45.000 –> 00:22:49.000
Ava Ness: Yeah, I mean, there’s just so many things to love about a book like that.
00:22:49.000 –> 00:22:53.000
Ava Ness: One that came to my mind was The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes.
00:22:53.000 –> 00:22:54.000
AJ Blythe: Oh yes.
00:22:54.000 –> 00:23:01.000
Ava Ness: Jennifer is, she gave a presentation I think to the Romance Writers of America a few years ago that’s…
00:23:01.000 –> 00:23:02.000
Ava Ness: still quite popular today.
00:23:02.000 –> 00:23:11.000
Ava Ness: I think you can actually still download it from their website, where she talked about all the elements of a story that really hook people and really just keep you reading.
00:23:11.000 –> 00:23:13.000
Ava Ness: So she’s the master at that.
00:23:13.000 –> 00:23:23.000
Ava Ness: And the inheritance games, well, first of all, it’s got 2 hooky words within the title, inheritance and games, which instantly grab your interest.
00:23:23.000 –> 00:23:28.000
Ava Ness: And it’s about a billionaire mansion that’s packed with hidden passageways, secret rooms and puzzles.
00:23:28.000 –> 00:23:34.000
Ava Ness: for you like Nancy Drew style mysteries and enjoy reading YA, that’s a really good one to read as well.
00:23:34.000 –> 00:23:40.000
Ava Ness: It’s a really well constructed story and it’s just got everything in there that just sucks you into the story.
00:23:40.000 –> 00:23:42.000
AJ Blythe: And I think that you said that one’s a YA.
00:23:42.000 –> 00:23:45.000
AJ Blythe: I think I remember so many kids books.
00:23:45.000 –> 00:23:56.000
AJ Blythe: So when I was reading stories to my children when they were younger, that there were so many that had that secret passageway, like stories with pirates, and they’d go down the tunnel to the beach to deliver the treasure to the ship.
00:23:56.000 –> 00:24:06.000
AJ Blythe: And I think that engages us as young people so that when we’re older, tunnels still give that sense of mystery and intrigue that we remember from our childhood.
00:24:06.000 –> 00:24:07.000
Ava Ness: Absolutely.
00:24:07.000 –> 00:24:12.000
Ava Ness: When I was doing some research on the books for this episode, I actually did find a book.
00:24:12.000 –> 00:24:13.000
Ava Ness: Dungeon Crawler Carl.
00:24:13.000 –> 00:24:14.000
Ava Ness: Matt Dinaman.
00:24:14.000 –> 00:24:17.000
Ava Ness: Yeah, it says the apocalypse will be televised.
00:24:17.000 –> 00:24:21.000
Ava Ness: Welcome to the first book in the wildly popular and addictive Dungeon Crawler Carl series.
00:24:21.000 –> 00:24:24.000
Ava Ness: You know what’s worse than breaking up with your girlfriend being stuck with her prize- winning show cat.
00:24:24.000 –> 00:24:26.000
Ava Ness: And you know what’s worse than that?
00:24:26.000 –> 00:24:36.000
Ava Ness: An alien invasion, the destruction of all man-made structures on Earth and the systematic exploitation of all those survivors for a sadistic intergalactic game show.
00:24:36.000 –> 00:24:55.000
Ava Ness: Join Coast Guard veteran Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as they survive the end of the world or just get to the next level in a video game like Trap-filled Fantasy Dungeon, a dungeon that’s actually set in a reality TV show underground with countless viewers across the galaxy.
00:24:55.000 –> 00:24:56.000
AJ Blythe: It does sound like a lot of fun.
00:24:56.000 –> 00:24:59.000
AJ Blythe: I believe the series started in 2020.
00:24:59.000 –> 00:25:00.000
Ava Ness: Oh, okay, cool.
00:25:00.000 –> 00:25:03.000
Ava Ness: That sort of caught my attention because I think
00:25:03.000 –> 00:25:05.000
Ava Ness: It’s set underground.
00:25:05.000 –> 00:25:09.000
Ava Ness: You have to go underground to join the game and then you have to go on levels.
00:25:09.000 –> 00:25:11.000
Ava Ness: Each level is taking a lower and lower underground.
00:25:11.000 –> 00:25:14.000
AJ Blythe: Well, that’s quite terrifying just in itself, isn’t it?
00:25:14.000 –> 00:25:18.000
AJ Blythe: Yeah, To keep going deeper rather than starting at the bottom and getting closer to the surface.
00:25:18.000 –> 00:25:19.000
Ava Ness: Exactly.
00:25:19.000 –> 00:25:23.000
Ava Ness: Yeah, So that’s another one as well.
00:25:23.000 –> 00:25:26.000
AJ Blythe: Dear listener, have you read a good mystery novel with secret tunnels?
00:25:26.000 –> 00:25:35.000
AJ Blythe: Drop your recommendations into the comments so everyone can lose themselves in the pages of a puzzling mystery until next week’s case of Melissa Caddick arrives.
00:25:35.000 –> 00:25:37.000
Ava Ness: I look forward to discussing that one.
00:25:37.000 –> 00:25:48.000
Ava Ness: I know a lot about it from media reports, but I’m interested to find out what you might have learned is behind all the sensational stories, although it is a sensational story in itself.
00:25:48.000 –> 00:25:49.000
AJ Blythe: It is indeed.
00:25:49.000 –> 00:25:53.000
AJ Blythe: So join us next time for that mystery and until then, have a great week.
00:25:53.000 –> 00:25:54.000
Ava Ness: Bye.
00:25:54.000 –> 00:25:57.000
AJ Blythe: Thanks for joining the Down Under Mystery Club.
00:25:57.000 –> 00:26:02.000
AJ Blythe: If you enjoyed the show, follow so you never miss an episode and share it with a fellow mystery lover.
00:26:02.000 –> 00:26:07.000
AJ Blythe: We enjoy hearing from you, so drop us a comment at ajblythe.com/podcast.
00:26:07.000 –> 00:26:10.000
AJ Blythe: Until next time, club adjourned.
