Mystery Maniacs - Clues and Reviews 9/7/26
Hey, Maniacs.
Mark:Hey, Mystery Maniacs. It's Clues and Reviews. Not Blue's Clues. No. It's not Blue's Clues.
Sarah:Doesn't Blue, like, go talk like that? You don't have a stripy sweater on.
Mark:I do not. Couple of things that we wanna cover off the top is we finally saw Blue Murder episode number one. Blue
Sarah:Murder Hotel.
Mark:Blue Murder Hotel.
Sarah:Sorry. On Acorn.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:I was not impressed.
Mark:It was a solid six out of 10 for me.
Sarah:Oh, that's higher than I would give it.
Mark:I I don't actually wanna watch anymore. They were trying to set up minor characters that didn't hit, and it's like, I don't mind a cheap production. I've seen lots of cheap productions. But
Sarah:Brokenwood didn't have much money in its first season either. That's not the problem with this. No. The problem is that the writing is just Yes. You can sort of predict what people are gonna say.
Mark:Yes. I would agree.
Sarah:Go watch Mister and Missus Murder. It's better.
Mark:Yeah. Mister and Missus Murder is an Australian show that has four seasons, I think.
Sarah:But it's also about a couple Yep. Who solve mysteries. I just think it's clever.
Mark:Yes. The
Sarah:characters are better. But if you've watched more than the first episode and it gets better, tell us and we'll give it another shot.
Mark:Please do. Last week, two weeks ago on Clues and Reviews, we asked you for teams of characters. Yeah. And Rachel gave us a list. It's a butler team.
Sarah:A team of butlers.
Mark:Yes. So she is Jeeves from Jeeves in Worcester.
Sarah:Yeah.
Mark:She has Bunter from Lord Peter Whimsy. Who is excellent. George from Poirot. Mhmm. Wadsworth ripped Tim Curry for sure.
Mark:Yeah. Wadsworth is from Clue. Clue, a movie that gets better and better as every single day goes by. Yeah. If you haven't watched Clue, go watch Clue.
Mark:Good.
Sarah:Right now. Yep. Go watch it.
Mark:Then watch the making of Clue, and you will be amazed how that movie ever got made.
Sarah:Yeah. It's really fun. Yes. That documentary is really fun.
Mark:And then she has a nod to the OG, which is Alfred Pennyworth from Batman.
Sarah:Who's your favorite Alfred from movies?
Mark:From movies?
Sarah:Oh. I'm gonna say Michael Caine.
Mark:I do like Michael Caine. He's pretty good. Yeah. But I do also like Scarlet's, the new one. I think he's pretty good too.
Sarah:So Rachel's Butler team got me thinking of Butler's too.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:And this is not all Butler's, but I would really like to see Lug from Campion.
Mark:I think she missed Lug. Lug is so good in Campion.
Sarah:And Kato from Pink Panther.
Mark:Kato.
Sarah:He's excellent.
Mark:The Pink Panther movies are so essential to my youth, and I love the idea of having somebody in the house with you that was like your friend Yeah. That challenged you all the time and was like I was kind of an only child, I kinda missed that.
Sarah:You you wanted somebody to attack you every time you got home from school? Yes. But Kato's also actually really helpful.
Mark:Yes. He is super helpful.
Sarah:Yeah. So So I I I mean, it's a really big team already. It's already five people, but I would add Lug and Kato to that group.
Mark:Another thing this week, I watched, I think, every single episode of Devices and Desires. I could find every movie. I found a new PD James movie that I hadn't seen from 2001 that I watched. Yes. But this Martin Shaw had just about every single person from Midsommar different points.
Sarah:So And what was it?
Mark:It was PD James story about the doom and the school the religious school being closed. It's called Death in Holy Orders, and he's a different kind of dead leash than Bertie is.
Sarah:Oh, okay.
Mark:The reason why I started watching that first because Devices and Desires is one of my favorite P. D. James books. But the I was completely wrong. A few newsletters ago, I mentioned that Bertie would not be doing season four of Taglich.
Mark:Taglich, but he is now, and they're filming it in Ireland right now. And what's interesting is they're doing three stories like they normally do, but one of them is PD James, and then they're doing two original stories. Oh. So now you get the in the vein of PD James.
Sarah:That'll be fun.
Mark:So I think it'll be absolutely fantastically fun.
Sarah:I really like the the new Doug Leash a lot.
Mark:Yes. He didn't do well in, Birdie didn't do well in the, Game of Thrones spin off that we mentioned last week. He gets bonk bonked on the head and doesn't come back from it.
Sarah:Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Is that right?
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:Yeah. So we've got Birdie, who is Doug Leesch.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:And tits in a tree, both in Knights of the Seven Kingdoms. Yes. Can people even understand us?
Mark:No. Don't know. I do not think so.
Sarah:So we try to identify some theme, some question about murder fiction that we can talk about in these Clues and Reviews episodes. And this week, Mark has come up with a very good theme, I think.
Mark:Yes. Because I'm reading Ross Montgomery's first detective book. He's written 30 children's books. Oh my gosh. So this is his first detective
Sarah:be a struggle not to go, look. There's a bird. Oh, wait a minute. Somebody's gotta die. I it shouldn't rhyme.
Mark:This this is this is well, okay. So it's called The Murder in World's End, and he has a new book coming out in a couple of weeks called The Shadows of Kensington Gore, which also looks good. The reason being I got recommended this is there's a butler and a elderly lady of the manor Okay. In this story. Now the first one, Murder at World's End, takes place in 1910 when Haley's Comet is going to go past Earth again, and they a whole bunch of people are seconded in a mansion off of this coast of Cornwall that is separated because of a flood, and you can't get to and from the island.
Sarah:Well, gee,
Mark:that's never happened in fiction. Happened tons and times. Again. Yeah. So I think that's fantastic.
Mark:And his
Sarah:It's kinda like, the midsummer where they're at the board game company mansion.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:Yeah.
Mark:So the butler is fantastic. I think he's a great character, but then the old lady, woo, doggy, she is not children's fiction. She, she it gets so interesting, her vernacular and choice of words, that the butler is like, I can't even repeat what she said. And she is fantastic. I I think, like, she is Game of Thrones, Diana Rigg kind of person.
Mark:Like
Sarah:She like Maggie
Mark:Maggie Smith.
Sarah:Maggie Smith. Yeah. The show that's not Bridgerton. What's it called? Wow.
Mark:We've just lost
Sarah:I did. Do we have a stroke? Downton Abbey. Thank you. Like Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey kinda.
Mark:More with a little bit of missus Haverson thrown in. They they keep her in a nursery in the other part of the house because she tends to be very hard on on
Sarah:They don't want her around the company. Is that it? Yes. Okay. And she's the dowager.
Mark:Yeah. She's kind of the dowager, but she is incredibly intelligent, and I'm excited to read more of this book.
Sarah:And that's Ross Montgomery's The Murder at World's End?
Mark:Yes. And World's End is fantastic because it's it's one of those great British colonial things of, well, the world couldn't go further than Cornwall.
Sarah:But it's also Halley's Comet might be the end of the world.
Mark:Yes. People were kind of freaked up
Sarah:by Halley's Comet.
Mark:Yep. And so the whole house gets closed up, and I'm not giving any spoilers away yet. The whole house gets closed up by the paranoid nephew who thinks he's a scientist.
Sarah:And
Mark:she's like, no, we're going out to look at the car.
Sarah:It kind of makes me think of, like, the Flavia De Luce books.
Mark:It's very Flavia De Luce. I think he is very influenced by the Flavia De Luce books. If you've not
Sarah:read any Flavia De Luce, do yourself a favor and just read the first one. They're they're so good.
Mark:So that and the second book in my Mont Bailey series will be set on an estate that is inaccessible.
Sarah:Okay.
Mark:And I will It got us
Sarah:thinking about other stories that are set in secluded manor houses.
Mark:There's lots of them. To me, the OG, the original is follow the House of Usher. The first paragraph starts with a description of you walking up to the house like it is. The house is a character.
Sarah:We have always lived in the castle. Yeah. The haunting of hell Hill House. Yeah. I never know if it's Hell House or Hill House.
Mark:There's two. There's Hell House and Hill House.
Sarah:Okay. I looked
Mark:that up this week too because and then I think the the the OG detective one for this is, and then Yeah. There were
Sarah:You have to choose whether or not it's one of those, we've all come here voluntarily. Yes. And then we're secluded, like the hotel that's secluded, like the Poirot when he's trapped in the mountains and the the duchess is there or whatever, versus the I've invited you all here to my secluded Manor.
Mark:Which is at the end, then we're a nun. Yeah. So that that's in the Murder at World's End. He's bringing all the people he wants to save from the World's End Oh. To the house.
Sarah:I see.
Mark:So he thinks he can survive Haley's Comet.
Sarah:If he's on the island off of Cornwall.
Mark:Yes. Okay. They go through closing up the house and all that stuff. There's a miss Fisher's Christmas special.
Sarah:They're trapped by weather.
Mark:Yep. I I guess that Christy uses
Sarah:You say it's Christmas. It's in July. What would Isn't it? Because it's snowing.
Mark:Yeah. It's snowing. Yeah. But they're having Christmas in July. Christie uses this a lot.
Mark:Ordeal by Innocence is the one with the causeway that gets water.
Sarah:Then there's the the one where Poirot spends Christmas.
Mark:Yes. Poirot's Christmas.
Sarah:That's the one with the the whoopee cushion, isn't it?
Mark:Yes. Yeah. Pig bladder. Mysterious affair at styles. I would say the beginning part of seven dials is kinda like that too.
Mark:So it's seclusion. It's bad weather. Bad weather is always a part of this. And and certainly, traitors, the reality show, plays on all of this. Mhmm.
Sarah:Which has a new season coming out soon. Yes. My favorite. Well, I mean, all of those are awesome. But if I have to pick a favorite that isn't on that list, that isn't like a classic.
Sarah:Simon r Green has a book has a series of books with a detective called Ishmael Jones.
Mark:Yes. You mentioned these to me before.
Sarah:Yeah. And they almost always happen at some kind of secluded manor house because he is a detectivesecret agent kind of. And so he gets sent to these, like, classy retreat places to find out what's going on because there's some kind of espionage or somebody's life has been threatened and he's kind of there to sort of protect them, but they always have some kind of supernatural thing
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:Going on too.
Mark:And I think that Conan Doyle played with that with Speckled Man Yeah. And maybe even the bicyclist one.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:Because they're kinda like that that isolation.
Sarah:I would say Hound of the Baskervilles.
Mark:Well, Hound of oh, yeah. Hound of the Baskervilles is a big one.
Sarah:Yeah. But Ishmael Jones has a a sidekick who's another agent. Her name is Penny, and she's super sharp and smart and glamorous and awesome.
Mark:You'd add her to your list.
Sarah:Yeah. She's really good. Yeah. Like you cheer for her all the time because she kicks ass, but they're kinda funny and scary and detective y. And, again, that's Simon R Green Yeah.
Sarah:The Ishmael Jones series.
Mark:So what what we're asking you guys, what are your favorite secluded mansion manor house stories? Yeah. Because I love those. Like, as soon as it's like, oh, we've all been invited here. How did we get here?
Mark:And then it's like, and the weather's turning bad. I'm like, oh, they're turning the knobs. Speaking of
Sarah:Clue. Right?
Mark:Yeah. Definitely.
Sarah:Clue is
Mark:like that. Then there was that one. I know we talked about this on the regular podcast. The the one that was set in the Arctic where it was the millionaire brought everybody to his house.
Sarah:Oh, I don't know the room. I don't know.
Mark:It was a Hulu. Was a I
Sarah:was like, the thing? No. No. Though the thing is, it's also this. Really?
Sarah:What isn't?
Mark:There are there are lots of things that aren't this but but I do love I do love this this sneaking around at night. I do love the the spookiness of it. There's only five of us here. It has to be one of us. Then like I I think I was really influenced by and then there were none as a kid because I can remember and I'm going to spoil a book that is A 100 years old.
Mark:100 years old. You get to a point in in And Then There Were None where everyone is dead.
Sarah:Yeah.
Mark:And you are like
Sarah:There's 20 pages to go.
Mark:Excuse me.
Sarah:Agatha, did you forget something?
Mark:And then you don't like, you don't want the the rude mechanical of and then there was a secret person who's never been mentioned in the rest of the book Right. Who's killed all these people.
Sarah:That breaks the rules.
Mark:Like, that breaks the rules, and that would be wrong.
Sarah:I like the secret passageway country estates. Yes. Where you figure out, oh, there's another way to get around. You know? Yeah.
Sarah:Or where it's kind of upstairs, downstairs where you get to see sort of the perspective on all these wealthy people being here, but we're the ones who have to feed them and take care of them and stuff is going on.
Mark:Yeah, the Murder at World's End really has a really good feel for both those things.
Sarah:Yeah, so what's your favorite secluded country manor hotel in the Alps?
Mark:Yep.
Sarah:People stuck together fiction, whether it's a book or a movie or a TV show. I don't know how you'd make a series out of
Mark:that, but. Somebody must have.
Sarah:Like, yep, we're still stuck here. It's week seven of this season.
Mark:You could press it down to real time or hours.
Sarah:Yes, slow it down. Yeah. But tell us what your favorites are. Yes. Because we love these stories.
Sarah:I would love to hear of one I haven't heard of before.
Mark:Oh, definitely. Amazing. Yes.
Sarah:Alright, Maniacs. Have a good week.
Mark:Have a good week, Maniacs. Thanks for joining us on the Mystery Maniacs podcast. If you enjoyed our crazy podcast today, don't miss out on future episodes. Follow us on social media for updates, beyond the scenes content, and exclusive sneak peeks. Subscribe, like, and share to spread the word.
Mark:Bye, Maniacs.
