Welcome to Mysteries to Die For.

Mysteries to Die For is brought to you by Down & Out Books. This episode’s featured release is State of Shock by M. Todd Henderson.

When Jante Turner is murdered just days before she takes the mantle as new dean of Rockefeller University Law School in Chicago, Royce Johnson is approached to help solve the murder. Recently released from prison, the ex-FBI agent has his own problems. Still, he takes the job.

Soon, Johnson finds himself at the intersection of higher education, Chicago politics, big money, and murder. Johnson traces a river of corruption running from deep-pocket donors of the University to North Side developers and a South Side alderman who is heir to the throne in City Hall. In his desperation, he turns to the one lawyer who can help him—the former Rockefeller student whom Johnson mistakenly framed for murder on his last case.

State of Shock is available from Down & Out’s website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indieboound, or asked for it from your favorite book seller.

Before the Story

I am TG Wolff and am here with Jack, my piano player and producer. This is a podcast where we combine storytelling with original music to put you at the heart of mystery, murder, and mayhem. Some episodes will be my own stories, others will be classics that helped shape the mystery genre we know today. These are arrangements, which means instead of word-for-word readings, you get a performance meant to be heard. Jack and I perform these live, front to back, no breaks, no fakes, no retakes (unless it's really bad)

 This is Season 2. This season contains adaptations of stories published in the 1800s. These stories are some of the first considered to be mysteries. For that reason, this season is called The Originators.

Today’s story is about the costs of greed, arrogance, and pride. This is T. Sawyer, Esquire, an abridged telling of Tom Sawyer, Detective.

 Tina: This short story takes place shortly after Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn free their friend Jim from Tom’s Aunt & Uncle’s farm in Arkansas. Since that told me nothing about the setting for the story, went new school and googled “what was the setting for Huckleberry Finn”. The answer as far as date was “40-50 years ago”. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published in 1884, making the setting 1830-1840s. Tom Sawyer, Detective was published in 1896.

 Location was harder. Tom and Huck live in the fictional town of St. Petersburg, MO, which is said to be really Hannibal, Missouri where Twain lived. In Huck Finn, Huck and Jim sail down down the Mississippi from the St. Petersburg to Arkansas. Huck and Jim disembark near the Missouri-Tennessee-Arkansas boarder. Based on this, I picked Osceola, Arkansas as our pin on the map. Zip code 72370. Osceola was founded in 1837 and incorporated in 1853, growing with steamboat traffic.

 Travel time from the Royal Observatory, home to the Prime Meridian, is about 15, flying from Heathrow to Memphis, and then driving the hour north to Osceola. Osceola is only a 90 min drive from Senatobia, Mississippi, our pin for the 2nd story in this season.

Jack and I are up here in Northeast Indiana. When I hear Missouri, I think south, like southern. So it blew my geographically challenged mind that Hannibal is no father south that Indianapolis, I city I travel to frequently AND its hours north of Evansville, Indiana, which is an incredibly cool town on the Ohio River. Jack, we need a road trip so I can get my mapping straight.

Personally, I was surprised at the rating on Goodreads. With over 2,000 ratings, the average is 3.56. Vastly underrating it IMO. 30% rated it a 4 and 35% a 3. 

One 3-star reviewer wrote: I can see why this wasn't as successful as the first two books in the series. It took...