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In THE WHEEL SPINS (1936), a young woman’s train journey takes a sinister turn when a fellow passenger mysteriously disappears. This suspenseful, edge-of-your-seat novel by Ethel Lina White served as the basis for Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic film The Lady Vanishes. The book is a stunner.

Special guest Alex Csurko joins us to discuss this classic novel. Check out the conversation starters below. Weigh in, and you might just get an on-air shoutout and a fab sticker!

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Hitchcock

Even reading the book by Ethel Lina White, it felt like it could be a Hitchcock film with the psychological tension and the way the scenes are painted. The New York Times ranked it the best picture of the year (1938).

Premonition/Foreboding (Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign)

The first paragraph introduces us to Iris. Every chapter, starting with chapter one, ends with a sense of foreboding.

• Safety vs. danger – Iris’ square on her palm
• Miss Froy is homesick, which she sees as a warning.
• The dangerous hike (being lost) was a warning.
• Rose’s dream of a railway smash.
• Iris passes out from sunstroke and barely makes the train.
• Miss Froy’s story about an Englishwoman locked in an asylum (friendless foreigner who didn’t speak the language)
• Mr. and Mrs. Froy feel apprehensive about their daughter’s safety.

Premonition plays a role throughout the book by Ethel Lina White. Is it just a psychological variable here? Is premonition real? Is it inescapable?

Stranger in a Strange Land

In The Wheel Turns by Ethel Lina White, Iris and her friends are staying in a village of “picturesque squalor in a remote corner of Europe,” filled with barbarous scenery, magnificent ruggedness, and desolate hollows. She doesn’t speak the language or understand the culture. She’s also an outsider amongst the British “decent, well-bred” guests. And when she passes out at the station from sunstroke, she awakes to foreign people and foreign voices.

Keep your eye on Crippen & Landru to see when the new Ethel Lina White collection drops!

A Legal Criticism

• As Iris waits at the train station, she overhears a disagreement between Hare and the professor. Hare says trial by jury is poor justice, people have inherent biases, people can’t control themselves from erroneous snap judgements, and even evidence isn’t reliable. He says everyone’s a “bag of his special prejudices” (50) and an unreliable witness.
• Iris rather takes Hare’s side, but then agrees with the professor’s side when she thinks about trusting the solid, dependable British woman over a foreign s

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Fleur Bradley is the author of many mysteries for kids, including Midnight at the Barclay Hotel and Daybreak on Raven Island.

Originally from the Netherlands, she now lives in Colorado with her family.

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JJ Jacobson convinces his mom to accept an invitation to an all-expenses-paid weekend getaway at the illustrious Barclay Hotel. He thinks he’s in for a run-of-the-mill ghost hunting at the most haunted spot in town, but when he arrives at the Barclay Hotel, he finds himself in the midst of a murder mystery.

Now, with the help of his new friends, Penny and Emma, JJ has to track down a killer and maybe even meet a ghost or two along the way.

Fleur Bradley is the author of many mysteries for kids, including Midnight at the Barclay Hotel and Daybreak on Raven Island. Midnight at the Barclay Hotel was nominated for the Reading the West and the Agatha and Anthony Award. It won the Colorado Book Award and Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Crystal Kite Award.

Midnight at the Barclay Hotel is also on the Rhode Island Children’s Book Award list and recently won Florida’s Sunshine State Young Readers Award. Daybreak on Raven Island was nominated for the Anthony and Agatha Awards, won the Colorado Authors League Book Award for Best Juvenile Book, and is on the 2024-25 Texas Library Association’s Bluebonnet Award List.

Fleur regularly does school and virtual visits, as well as librarian and educator conference talks. She’s also a writing instructor and coach. Her signature topics are reaching reluctant readers, writing the book of your heart, love of mysteries, and the power of reading. Originally from the Netherlands, she now lives in Colorado with her family.

Reading Age: 8-11 years (grades 3-7) | Amazon: average 4.8 stars

Five invitations are sent for an all-expense paid April weekend at the historic (and possibly haunted) Barclay Hotel in Aspen Springs, Colorado. It has a pool, cupcake shop, carousel, movie theater, bowling alley, and the largest private library in Colorado. The invitation has LOTS of fine print, including no cell phone service.

Part I, Liars, Liars (or, The Players)

Everyone’s a liar: Everyone has a secret to keep. (Cowboy, librarian, CEO, actress, and detective.) And Penny, Emma & JJ. Can you speak to setting everyone up as a secret keeper or in some cases a liar?

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Full-time writer KEMPER DONOVAN is currently publishing an ongoing mystery series via Kensington Books. He joins us to discuss The Busy Body, the first in the Ghostwriter series, and The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie.

Previously, he published the standalone novel The Decent Proposal (HarperCollins). He is also the host of the podcast All About Agatha, dedicated to all things Agatha Christie, in which guise he has appeared on BBC TV and Radio New Zealand and written for the official Agatha Christie website, agathachristie.com.

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Learn more about our hosts The Ucross Foundation.

Former Senator Dorothy Gibson, aka “that woman,” is the most talked-about person in the country. Dorothy had been the independent candidate for President, and after her very public defeat she has retreated to her home in rural Maine. She invites a ghostwriter to join her so they can work on her memoir.

A ghostwriter tells other people’s stories for a living, and this is a dream assignment. The ghostwriter is impressed by Dorothy’s work ethic and steel-trap mind, not to mention the lovely surroundings (and one particularly gorgeous bodyguard). But when a neighbor dies under suspicious circumstances, Dorothy is determined to find the killer, and she and the ghostwriter team up to launch their own murder investigation.

The best ghostwriters are adept at asking questions and spinning stories … two talents, it turns out, that also come in handy for sleuths. Dorothy’s political career, meanwhile, has made her an expert at recognizing lies and double-dealing. Working together, the two women are soon untangling motives and whittling down suspects, to the exasperation of local police. But this investigation—much like the election—may not unfold the way anyone expects …

Influence

The Busy Body by Kemper Donovan has been described as a mystery in the “timeless tradition of Agatha Christie.” In what ways has Christie’s writing influenced you?

Do you agree that the novel is Agatha Christie-esque? In what ways? Was that by intention?

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