Next month, the Seagull Amateurs, my local theatre company, is staging a play I wrote! Seeing the cast in character is really special.

From Little Miss Marple to The Last Death of the Year, read all about this month's Agatha Christie news. The #ChristieCatchUp for October is live! open.substack.com/pub/christie...

We welcome contributions for upcoming issues: 16.1: Open Themed (Deadline: 1 Jan 2026) 16.2: Crime (Deadline: 1 July 2026) 17.1: The State of Publishing (Deadline: 1 Jan 2027) 17.2: The Value of the Humanities (Deadline: 1 July 2027) ow.ly/8rOn50WVFBg @tomue.bsky.social @jcbernthal.com

We are extremely lucky to kick off day two with our amazing keynote! The amazing @thehistorygirl1.bsky.social discussing Golden Age Detective Fiction as War Fiction. 🕵🏻‍♀️🔪✨ #GoldenAgeDetectiveFiction @stefanoserafini.bsky.social @jcbernthal.com @tinahodgkinson.bsky.social @carolinederry.bsky.social

DAY ONE 🕵🏻‍♀️🔪🧶 is underway! ✨ We are so excited for some amazing papers this morning. Are you joing us? What panel are you excited for?! 🕵🏿‍♀️🔪🧶 @fsucci.bsky.social @jcbernthal.com @stefanoserafini.bsky.social @thehistorygirl1.bsky.social @michellekazmer.bsky.social @tinahodgkinson.bsky.social

I’m so excited that, in 2 days, we are launching both Silent Echoes, a golden age crime conference and Ten Little Mysteries, a book of new fiction inspired by the Golden Age. Get a sneak preview of the introduction here: jcbernthal.com/2025/09/07/c...

Extremely excited to see this come together. It’s a great and timely issue!

The Christie Catch-Up: August/September 2025 open.substack.com/pub/christie...

Out today from Crippen & Landru: Double Crossing Van Dine! I'm honoured to have a story in this collection, where each author breaks one of S.S. Van Dine's sacred rules of detective fiction writing. crippen-and-landru.myshopify.com/products/dou...

Just launched a Substack! The Christie Catch-Up tells you what you might have missed from the world of Agatha Christie each month. I am still finding my feet so please let me know what you think! christiecatchup.substack.com

🗡#CWADaggers And the Short Story Dagger 2024 WINNER is… JC BERNTHAL, for ‘A Date on Yarmouth Pier’ Published in Midsummer Mysteries, edited by Martin Edwards (Flame Tree Press)

This is fabulous news and very well deserved for Festival Friend, the amazing Dr Jamie Bernthal-Hooker. Well done Jamie!

I can't quite believe this, but my first mainstream fiction publication, 'A Date on Yarmouth Pier', has been shortlisted for the CWA Short Story Dagger!!!!!!

Issue 15.1 of Book 2.0 is in @intellectbooks.bsky.social! Thx, to my BFF @jcbernthal.com & to our fab contributors, for a great issue! Here's to the next 50.

To commemorate the 80th anniversary of VE Day, as part of our September Festival, we will have a glamorous VE Day themed ball in the Grand, and talks from @jcbernthal.com and experts from @isokongallery.bsky.social on Agatha Christie's life and work during the war www.iacf-uk.org/festival-202...

A few days left to send in your abstracts! See you there?! 🕵🏻‍♀️🔍✨ @jcbernthal.com @stefanoserafini.bsky.social @thehistorygirl1.bsky.social @thecwa.bsky.social @crimestudies.bsky.social @moderniststudies.bsky.social @middlebrownetwork.bsky.social #CrimeFiction @agathafestival.bsky.social

After launching the very exciting no-longer-secret project, I’m at the theatre. It is funny.

What a fabulous concept! Congratulations to @markaldridge.info @jcbernthal.com @michellekazmer.bsky.social and Gray Robert Brown. All 4 of these brilliant Agathaologists are speaking at this year's Festival in September. We can't wait! #agathachristie

🔍✨EXCITING ANNOUNCEMENT✨🔍 We are thrilled to announce our 2025 keynote for Golden Age of Crime, @thehistorygirl1.bsky.social ! @universityofleeds.bsky.social Read more about Prof. Meyer and her fascinating research below👇🏻 ✨Submissions open until 5th May✨

❗We are excited to announce our keynote speaker for 'Silent Echoes: Golden Age Crime Fiction and Trauma', at FSU's London Study Centre in September. Professor Jessica Meyer @thehistorygirl1.bsky.social is an expert on masculinity, war, and popular culture whose work we LOVE. We cannot wait.

This is the most delightful surprise. My short story, ‘A Date on Yarmouth Pier’ (which is sort of about a serial killer and is a bit gay) has been long listed for the CWA Short Story dagger. And what an illustrious list it is, too. ❤️

So sorry to hear this news. One of the last of his school of crime writers, consistently brilliant, and just a very nice and supportive person. RIP Peter Lovesey.

@jcbernthal.com & I are beavering away at 15.1 of Book 2.0 @intellectbooks.bsky.social, which features reviews of new titles from Oxford UP, @yalepress.bsky.social, @princetonupress.bsky.social, Gordon Hill P, & numerous others! Warm thx to our contributors!

You can now get Jessica Brick Investigates as an ebook! Like the physical book, it contains the first 5 comic mystery stories featuring my amateur sleuth Jessica Brick (she models herself on Miss Marple, but isn't very good). www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0F3V75GV3/

Looks like another great line up for this year’s @agathafestival.bsky.social! I’m looking forward to my talk, SECRETS AND SPIES: AGATHA CHRISTIE THE WAR WRITER. 😎 www.iacf-uk.org/festival-202...

Utterly delighted to finally be able to reveal the new Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution map which I did the research for witnesscountyhall.com

. @jcbernthal.com talks about why #Christie remains so popular @mcfarland.bsky.social 's podcast Best Part of the Bk ($ave 25% on his #AgathaChristie: A Companion to the #Mystery Fiction w/coupon code BESTPART on McF website). I edit the series. buff.ly/8uhh2D2 #detectivefiction #books

What a joy to talk all things Agatha Christie with Mark Perzel for McFarland’s Best Part of the Book podcast. The podcast tells you how to get an exclusive discount on my gargantuan encyclopaedic AGATHA CHRISTIE: A COMPANION TO THE MYSTERY FICTION! bestpartofthebook.alitu.com

So excited to share a call for papers for our next conference, Silent Echoes: Golden Age Crime Fiction and Trauma. It will be held in London in September, at the Florida State University's London Study Centre. jcbernthal.com/2025/03/16/c...

This is my brilliantly artistic grandmother, who died 10 years ago yesterday. She was born during the Second World War and adopted. In her last years, before a rapid cancer ended things too soon, she tried to find out more about her roots.

I interviewed Lucy Foley in 2020, discussing her breakout novel The Hunting Party, which is proudly Agatha Christie-inspired and successfully contemporary.

Miss Marple is getting a new novel outing from Lucy Foley! www.thebookseller.com/rights/harpe...

Fans and scholars of Josephine Tey ‼️ I’d be interested in your take on this new Radio 4 adaptation of Brat Farrar. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/serie...

On @mcfarland.bsky.social 's podcast Best Part of the Bk on 14 Mar, @jcbernthal.com , author of #AgathaChristie: A Companion to the #Mystery Fiction, will discuss Christie's life, work & popularity (I edit the bk series) mcfarlandbooks.com/our-story/be... #detectivefiction #nonfiction #books

On this episode of In Conversation, James Campbell is joined by Tom Ue and Jamie Bernthal, the new co-editors of Book 2.0 They discuss the journal, its aims and scopes, the intended audience and future plans for the journal. Watch the full episode here 👉youtu.be/065Ya6jaTjA @tomue.bsky.social

“What we ask is to be human individuals, however peculiar and unexpected.” For #InternationalWomensDay, the @goldenagemysteries.bsky.social gang and I are reading Dorothy L. Sayers’ ‘Are Women Human?’ A sometime witty, mostly exasperated reply to very silly attitudes in 1938, which still persist.

On the wafer-thin chance you’re following me for insights into offshore wind, I’ve started hosting this podcast for TGS. Our first episode talks about the US and German elections and what they mean for offshore wind. 🍃⚡️🎧 hubs.ly/Q03924Qv0

Finally seen #TowardsZero. It’s good. I will never truly appreciate this promotional image but was pleasantly surprised more than once. It was very nice to see Burgh Island.

I love amateur dramatics - supporting and taking part. Did a show over the weekend (I played a murderer!) and rehearsing the next one tonight. A nice way to build community and confidence, share culture, and escape into a microcosm where everything is simultaneously too serious and too unserious.

Looking forward to the BBC’s #TowardsZero starting tonight. The 1944 novel is an astonishing triumph that does everything edgy authors of psychological thrillers did 20 years later, interwoven with a supremely classical puzzle. These aren’t separate elements but enhance one another.

How do I entertain myself? By attempting elderly crosswords, it seems. This 'Crime and Detection'-themed trivia crossword appeared in The Times in December 1938 and very Golden Age-y.

The latest issue of Book 2.0 is out from Intellect! Mick Gower crowns his 15 years of editorship with a triumphant double issue. I’m proud to feature in this very special issue — reviewing Carolyn Dever’s edition of the diary of Michael Field. intellectdiscover.com/content/jour...

It’s that time of year again, folks!!!! It’s exciting!!! 📚🔎✨ @tinahodgkinson.bsky.social @jcbernthal.com @stefanoserafini.bsky.social @moderniststudies.bsky.social @modernistudies.bsky.social @greenbowlerhat.bsky.social @verbivorial.bsky.social @markaldridge.info @agathafestival.bsky.social

We’re so proud to announce that one of our directors Dr Stefano Serafini’s second monograph ‘Italian Crime Fiction Revisited: Authority, Detection, and the Supernatural, 1861–1941’ is out now! 📚🔎 link.springer.com/book/10.1007... #CrimeFiction #ItallianCrimeFiction #GoldenAge #History #Detection

Speckle declined to have his photograph taken.

And as I say, please do sign the petition: www.change.org/p/save-audio...

"The BBC is wrong to axe drama on Radio 3 – here’s why it matters" My piece for @thestage.bsky.social on the importance (past & present) of BBC Radio 3 drama: edition.thestage.co.uk/2025/01/21/a... #RadioDrama @writersguildgb.bsky.social @equityuk.bsky.social @societyofauthors.bsky.social

Recorded two podcasts this week on wildly different topics. Feeling like a renaissance man. (Actually, I’m feeling like a coffee.)

Subtle Agatha Christie reference! 🐁 🐁 🐁 #TheTraitors

Wait, I have a theory. What if they were trying to banish Linda this whole time and we just didn’t notice because of the spelling? #TheTraitors