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We were delighted to discuss all things mysterious with Otto Penzler in this episode.

Otto Penzler joins Tea, Tonic & Toxin to discuss the Golden Age of Mystery.

Otto Penzler is president and CEO of MysteriousPress.com and proprietor of New York City’s Mysterious Bookshop.

Widely regarded as a leading authority on crime, mystery, and suspense fiction, he founded The Mysterious Press in 1975 and later launched Penzler Publishers, including American Mystery Classics and Scarlet. A prolific editor and publisher, he has received two Edgar Awards, the Ellery Queen Award, and the Raven.

Get your copy of all of our History of Mystery book selections here! (including even some 2027 selections)

History of Mystery book slections now in our Bookshop Storefront as well! Support your local bookseller.

Or if you happen to be in lovely Roanoke, Virginia, stop in person at the BiblioPub to get your copy.

Watch clips from our conversations with guests!

For bonus episodes and to get all episodes first, join our Patreon community.

Otto Penzler is president and CEO of MysteriousPress.com and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City. Long regarded as one of the world’s foremost authorities on crime, mystery, and suspense fiction, he has spent decades shaping the field as a publisher, editor, bookseller, and champion of both classic and contemporary crime writing.

In 1975, Penzler founded The Mysterious Press, a publishing house that became one of the most respected names in mystery and suspense fiction. He sold the company to Warner Books in 1989, reacquired the imprint in 2010, and continued publishing literary crime fiction through Grove/Atlantic. Since January 2021, The Mysterious Press has again been independently owned. Through MysteriousPress.com, in partnership with Open Road Integrated Media, he publishes both original works and classic crime fiction.

In fall 2018, Penzler established Penzler Publishers, which introduced American Mystery Classics, a line dedicated to bringing distinguished mystery and detective novels back into print, many after decades of unavailability. In September 2020, he launched Scarlet, an imprint devoted to psychological and domestic suspense. Charles Perry serves as publisher of all Penzler Publishers imprints, and Luisa Smith is editor-in-chief of Scarlet.

Penzler’s contributions to the mystery world extend well beyond book publishing. For seventeen years, he published The Armchair Detective, the Edgar Award-winning quarterly journal devoted to the study of mystery and suspense fiction. He also created Otto Penzler Books and The Armchair Detective Library, fu

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Sergio Angelini joins Tea, Tonic & Toxin to discuss Green for Danger (1944) by Christianna Brand.

Sergio was born and bred in Rome, Italy, moving to Singapore for 5 years in the 1980s before settling in the UK. He studied Law at London School of Economics and got a joint MA in Film Studies and Film Archiving from the University of East Anglia. He hosts a podcast focused on crime and film noir called Tipping My Fedora.

Get your copy of all of our History of Mystery book selections here! (including even some 2027 selections)

History of Mystery book slections now in our Bookshop Storefront as well! Support your local bookseller.

Or if you happen to be in lovely Roanoke, Virginia, stop in person at the BiblioPub to get your copy.

Watch clips from our conversations with guests!

For bonus episodes and to get all episodes first, join our Patreon community.

Sergio has worked in film and education for over thirty years. He edited the educational media quarterly Viewfinder for a decade and for over eight years was the reviewer of TV home video releases for Sight & Sound magazine. For 15 years he was involved in the development and running of the educational streaming resource, BoB (Box of Broadcasts). He has provided video essays, audio commentaries and booklet notes for various DVD and Blu-ray releases for such labels as Arrow, BFI, Eureka (Masters of Cinema), Hammer Films, Imprint and Indicator.

Previous print publications include contributions to Gilbert Adair (Verbivoracious Festschrift, 2014), Mysteries Unlocked (McFarland, 2014), The Cult TV Book (IB Tauris 2010) and Directors in British and Irish Cinema (BFI, 2006).

Special guest Sergio Angelini joined Tea, Tonic & Toxin to discuss Christianna Brand’s Green for Danger, published in 1943.

Green for Danger is a Golden Age masterclass of red herrings and twists. The story, set during World War II, features a tense and claustrophobic investigation with a close-knit circle of suspects.

It’s 1942, and struggling up the hill to the new Kent military hospital, Heron’s Park, postman Joseph Higgins is soon to deliver seven acceptance letters for roles at the infirmary. He has no idea that the sender of one of the letters will be the cause of his death in just one year’s time.

When Higgins returns to Heron’s Park with injuries from a bombing raid in 1943, his death by asphyxiation in the operating theatre casts four nurses and three doctors under suspicion. When a second death occurs in quick succession, the moody, yet shrewd, Inspector Cockrill arrives on the scene. The stage is set for a tense and claustrophobic investigation. One of the doct

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GREEN FOR DANGER by Christianna Brand is a masterful wartime mystery set in a British hospital during the Blitz. When a patient dies under suspicious circumstances, Inspector Cockrill investigates a web of secrets among the medical staff. It’s a standout in Golden Age detective fiction.

Get your copy of all of our History of Mystery book selections here! (including even some 2027 selections)

History of Mystery book slections now in our Bookshop Storefront as well! Support your local bookseller.

Or if you happen to be in lovely Roanoke, Virginia, stop in person at the BiblioPub to get your copy.

Watch clips from our conversations with guests!

For bonus episodes and to get all episodes first, join our Patreon community.

Characters & Relationships in Green for Danger by Christianna Brand

1. The characters are intensely intertwined—romantically, professionally, emotionally. Did that closeness heighten the tension for you, or did the story veer into melodrama?
2. Several characters fall hard and fast in love. Marion loves Gervase, who toys with her affections. Barney loves less-than-steady Freddi, who has a thing for Gervase. Barney tells Freddi, “I’d rather have cruelty than dishonesty. I’d rather be hurt than deceived.” If given the choice, which would you prefer? And is this type of emotional intensity convincing given the historical moment—or did it feel exaggerated?
3. Gervase “looked at his ugly face and greying hair, at his thin, angular body and restless hands—and wondered what on earth women saw in him, and wished they wouldn’t” (2). He’s also married: “Once, long ago, one of the lovely ladies had been importunate, and he had not then acquired his skill in evading desperate situations. He had not seen her for several years, but she formed a shield against similar assaults upon his liberty” (32). Esther is the “only female in the hospital who can see Gervase Eden without swooning at his feet” (35). What exactly do the female characters see in “Don Juan” Gervase?
4. Some characters are haunted by loss. Esther left her mother behind to volunteer. After her mother’s building was hit, and “For two days and two nights she had waited in anguish while men toiled unceasingly at the mountain of rubble” (20). Major Moon mourns his dead son. Did you feel more for some characters than others?

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