A Murder is Announced (1950) was Agatha Christie’s 50th published book. So when better than the 50th anniversary of her death to celebrate one of her greatest works - and introduce Miss Marple into the back SLobalogue? In this third episode in our Queens of Crime series, Sophie and Jonty skip daintily from one side of the Second World War to the other to see if - and how - Agatha Christie’s plots and characters were impacted by the devastation.

What we find is an England down-at-heel. Austerity. Rationing. Widespread poverty. Deserters roaming the country. Paranoia and fear of foreigners. When a murder occurs at the (still) charming village of Chipping Cleghorn, the local police are all at sea. The problem is nobody really - truly - knows their neighbours anymore and are people who they say they are? Enter Miss Marple, the Victorian relic with a mind like a sink, to put everything straight - and remind us all that Agatha Christie truly has no peer when it comes to an elegant and rollicking good crime story.

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This week, for the second of our episodes on the Queens of Crime, we travel by steamer with Ngiao Marsh and her celebrated detective Roderick Alleyn, who decides to go on holiday in Marsh's native New Zealand — no trivial undertaking for an Englishman in the 1930s. Alleyn comes to NZ for the mountains and rivers, but stays for the bloody and highly innovative murder of a theater impressario, whose company is touring from London with the magnificent leading lady Carolyn Dacres.

P.D. James, a second gen Queen of Crime herself, wrote that ‘the method of death in a Ngaio Marsh novel tends to linger in the memory.’ Much about this novel lingers in the memory, including the remarkable descriptions of New Zealand's scenery and perhaps most of all Marsh's decision to bring Maori culture and traditions to the forefront of the story. In Vintage Murder, Marsh creates a tension between three factions - the imperial mentality of the touring theater company, the colonial subservience of the New Zealand police force, and the irrepressible agency of Maori culture. And while Roderick Alleyn has everyone metaphorically sipping together at the end, those tensions remain unresolved. Vintage Murder is a great thriller AND a disturbing portrait of late British imperialism.

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James Runcie is author of the acclaimed Grantchester Mysteries - the focus of six books and a hugely successful ITV television series - following vicar-sleuth Sidney Chambers in his sleuthing career from the early 1950s to the late 1970s. James talks to Jonty about where he finds the gold in the Golden Age of Crime. In particular, Dorothy L Sayers, Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr. He then talks about the inspiration behind the Grantchester Mysteries, which develops into a conversation about his father - who was Archbishop of Canterbury in the 1980s - and the trials and tribulations of the Church of England in the late 20th Century.

The Grantchester Mysteries are:

1. Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death (2012)
2. Sidney Chambers and The Perils of the Night (2013)
3. Sidney Chambers and The Problem of Evil (2014)
4. Sidney Chambers and The Forgiveness of Sins (2015)
5. Sidney Chambers and The Dangers of Temptation (2016)
6. Sidney Chambers and the Persistence of Love (2017)
7. The Road to Grantchester (2019)

As well as discussing many books from the Golden Age, James and Jonty both enthused about David Kynaston's brilliant and ongoing 'Tales of a New Jerusalem' cycle of history books focused on Britain after the Second World War. The cycle, which started with Austerity Britain (2007), has been a big influence on Grantchester.

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