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Note: The audio says this is episode 10. It isn\\u2019t. It\\u2019s #9.

Welcome to Mysteries to Die For.

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\\u2019s story is about blackmail, a spoiled child, and bats in the belfry. This is the Episode 10 Craven\\u2019s Tale, an adaptation of The Murder at Troyte\\u2019s Hill by Catherine Louisa Pirkis.

 Tina: The story today is set in Cumberland, England, which was a county on the southwestern border of Scotland. In 1974, there was a bit of clean up and a new county, Cumbria, was formed encompassing Cumberland, West Moreland and parts of Yorkshire and Lancashire. It\\u2019s always fascinating where the real places in fictional stories don\\u2019t exist anymore.

We know our fictional village is located not far off a rail line, is in the former Cumberland county, and, well that\\u2019s it. That gives us quite a bit of latitude picking a real place to stand in for our fictional place. Let\\u2019s drop the pin today on Heads Nook, England. Heads Nook is a village outside the city of Carlisle. A search on Trip Advisor found Heads Nook Hall, a B&B that must be a real treat. 366 review and 342 Excellent ratings, which is over 93%. Looking at the pictures, I\\u2019m ready to pack my bags, Jack.

Heads Nook is a 6 hour drive from the Royal Conservancy, where the Prime Meridian is set and is 3 hours from Ravescar, which is where we dropped the pin for our last English mystery in Episode 5 Sergeant Cuff and the Moonstone Diamond.

This episode\\u2019s story was a short story in a collection called The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective. The collection has 151 ratings on Goodreads with an average score of 3.54.

Here\\u2019s a 4-star review: Miss Brooke\\u2019s cases range from theft to missing persons to murder. They are interesting and illustrate the views of women\\u2019s proper activities and places in the society of the day. Loveday works for a private detective agency, and her employer is the person who is most astounded by her clever unraveling if the clues in her cases. Unlike Holmes she doesn\\u2019t have a sidekick who assists her, no Watson for her.

The stories are a nice afternoon entertainment!!

Here\\u2019s a 3-star review: I probably enjoyed this a bit more than 3 stars worth. An interesting short collection of seven loosely linked mystery stories, nearly all of which don't involve murders, so in that sense they are pleasant. Pirkis's formula seems to be that we follow the protagonist, watch what happens as she solves the mystery in a kind of mysterious manner, and then we get her detailed account of how she did it, or what was behind it... Probably the stories and protagonist were more remarkable for their time than nowadays, but they hold up well and the book is quite worth reading. And it's short.

I\\u2019ll save my own thoughts for after.

Jack: Our original author today is Catherine Louisa Pirkis, who published as C.L. Pirkis and Mrs. Fred E. Pirkis. She was born in 1839 to middle-class parents. Her father was an accountant and according to Victorian Research.org, her father\\u2019s obituary said he died from \\u201cconsequences of excessive exertion of the brain.\\u201d So, there\\u2019s that.

Catherine\\u2019s husband, Fred, was a captain for the English Royal..."