Tales for Our Time is a unique feature of The Mark Steyn Club - and, I'm pleased to say, one of our most popular: our nightly audio serialisations of classic literature from Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four to Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, via some neglected but highly pertinent gems such as Conan Doyle's tale of proto-jihadists preying on foolish westerners, The Tragedy of the Korosko.
Our current caper is Mystery in White, a "Christmas crime story" by Jefferson Farjeon now rocketing towards its thrilling conclusion - just as Fran, a First Weekend Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club, is beginning to warm up to it:
I'm enjoying this tale more now that there has been a rescue mission out in the blizzard conditions and it appears finally a little hint of romance between the young stranded girl and her rescuer. I knew there was something missing but I couldn't say exactly what it was.
On the other hand, Israel Pickholtz, an Israeli Steyn Clubber, found last night's episode somewhat lacking:
The unmasking in this episode should have been done Scooby Doo style.
Oh, dear. Sad to say, in tonight's ante-penultimate episode of Mystery in White, the non-Scooby style continues:
Mr. Maltby lowered the light to the man's waistcoat. "What kind of poison? Arsenic?"
"It was poison, and the kind don't matter!" burst out the wretched man. "But I had nothing to do with it, as God's above! Why, I didn't even know what was going on!"
"Or suspect?"
"What's one against three? It was the new will they were afraid of——"
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear me read Part Twenty-One of our tale simply by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier episodes can be found here.
I'll be right back here tomorrow with Part Twenty-Two of Mystery in White. If you're minded to join us in The Mark Steyn Club in this our eighth season, you're more than welcome. You can find more information here. And, if you have a chum you think might enjoy Tales for Our Time (so far, we've covered H G Wells, P G Wodehouse, Dickens, Conrad, Kipling, Kafka, Gogol, Baroness Orczy, Victor Hugo, Louisa May Alcott, O Henry, John Buchan, Scott Fitzgerald and more), we have a special Gift Membership that makes a perfect Christmas present.