Best Part of the Book podcast: Clues: A Journal of Detection.

On McFarland's Best Part of the Book podcast, executive editor Caroline Reitz (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY/CUNY Graduate Center) and I chat with host Mark Perzel about Clues: A Journal of Detection. Topics include the appeal of mysteries, the history of the journal, revelations that first appeared in the journal, and the most recent issue on disability and detective fiction. Those who would like to subscribe to the journal can receive a 25% discount with the coupon code BESTPART (email journals [at] mcfarlandpub.com).

Learning languages through mysteries.

André Klein's Heidis Frühstück:
A Detective Story for German
Language Learners

I love this 4 September 2024 article by Mengmeng Tu in I, Science about learning another language through detective stories. It's further evidence that the mystery genre serves many purposes (like Rapid Reads' mysteries to encourage reluctant readers, English as a second language learners, and adults involved in literacy programs).

FYI, the Summer 2021 issue of I, Science focuses on Mystery, with articles such as "The Serial Killer Gene: Myth or Truth?" and "Is Deduction Even Science, Mr. Holmes?"

German films of Edgar Wallace works.

Edgar Wallace, Der Frosch mit der Maske
(Fellowship of the Frog)

On the Galactic Journey blog, Cora Buhlert discusses the popularity in Germany of film adaptations of the works of Edgar Wallace, including Der Zinker (The Squeaker) with Klaus Kinski.

More on German detective fiction.

Bruce Campbell, German studies program director and associate professor, at the College of William & Mary, follows up his fall 2016 lecture on the heavy historical legacies of German detective fiction with a September 15 appearance on the radio program With Good Reason. 

 

Emil and the Detectives (1931, 1935).

Overlook Press ed. of
Emil and the Detectives

Erich Kaestner's classic 1929 children's novel about a boy pursuing the man who robbed him and enlisting the aid of a band of child detectives had two early film adaptations: a 1931 version scripted by Billy Wilder and a 1935 version.

The crossroads of German detective fiction.

The Virginia Gazette talked to Bruce Campbell, associate professor of German studies at the College of William & Mary, about his collection (edited with Alison Guenther-Pal and Vibeke Ruetzou Petersen) Detectives, Dystopia and Poplit: Studies in Modern German Genre Fiction. Covered in the book are intersections among crime fiction, science fiction, politics, the Nazis, and the Holocaust.

Related: Campbell discusses German detective fiction on the radio program With Good Reason.

In addition, watch Campbell's Oct. 2016 W&M Tack Faculty Lecture on "The Detective Is (Not) a Nazi: German Pulp Fiction." In his lecture, Campbell discusses detective fiction, culture, and memory in Germany, and recommends some authors in English translation (such as Friedrich Duerenmatt, Friedrich Glauser, and Doris Gercke). He also points out that a German detective novel (Adolf Muellner's Der Kaliber) was published in 1828, well before Edgar Allan Poe's 1841 "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and that the longest-running TV series in the world is the German Scene of the Crime (aka Tatort).