The Curiously Specific Book Club

Latest episodes

• John Buchan’s THE 39 STEPS Part 2: hit the beach at North Foreland, Kent, in search of dastardly German spies

  July 31, 2023 · 51 min

  In Part Two of our Buchan-based adventure we switch from Scotland to the Kent coast. We’re in search of the eponymous 39 steps. But first we need to locate Trafalgar House where German secret agents are hiding out. We end up at North…

• John Buchan’s THE 39 STEPS Part 1: experience the thrill of a chase through Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland

  July 24, 2023 · 51 min

  It’s an iconic moment in British literature – John Buchan’s hero Richard Hannay running across a moor with police, secret agents and an airplane all trying to hunt him down. But is it based on any kind of reality? We head for the Scottish…

• Margot Bennett’s THE WIDOW OF BATH Part Two: a North Foreland discovery

  July 17, 2023 · 59 min

  We return to Ramsgate in Kent with Margot Bennett’s brilliant thriller THE WIDOW OF BATH as our only guide. The book was published in 1952, the same year as rock and roll had its birthday. We’re looking for a hat shop and a suspicous…

• Margot Bennett’s THE WIDOW OF BATH Part One: Shady goings-on in Ramsgate

  July 10, 2023 · 49 min

  A young man with a questionable background is sitting in a small hotel by an unnamed harbour in England. He is ostensibly writing a review. Behind him he hears a party of unseen people come into the hotel restaurant. He knows their voices…

• Geoffrey Household’s ROGUE MALE Part 2: pursuit across Dorset – tracking down a secret holloway-hideaway

  July 3, 2023 · 51 min

  In Part Two we get out of town and attempt to bury ourselves in the Dorset countryside. We start at Dorchester, track down the narrator’s fake hideaway in the Sydling valley and then search for the famous ‘holloway’ where our hero tries to…

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