NPR's Book of the Day

Episode: These new mystery novels are 'whodunits' that might as well be called 'whydunits'

Date: October 10, 2025
Host: Glenn Weldon

Overview

This episode of NPR’s Book of the Day explores two innovative mystery novels that subvert the traditional “whodunit” formula. Instead of focusing on uncovering the perpetrator, these books, Janice Hallett’s The Killer Question and Peter Swanson’s Kill Your Darlings, delve deeper into the “whydunit”—the psychological motives and messy secrets beneath each crime. Interviews with both authors reveal their creative processes, observations about the genre, and the unique structures of their novels.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Killer Question by Janice Hallett

(01:22–08:48)

British Pub Quiz Culture and Motive

• The story opens with the classic mystery premise—a body in the river—but instead of an obvious motive, the murder revolves around a British pub quiz, highlighting how high the stakes of fairness and rules can feel locally.
• Janice Hallett: “It’s not just about winning. It’s about fairness and everyone being equal. And when people perceive that not happening, you know, tempers can run high.” (02:24)

Characters and Setting

• The pub, The Case Is Altered, is run by Sue and Mal—former police officers with a shady past, hiding their history from the tight-knit village.
• The central conflict arises with the arrival of “The Shadow Knights,” a mysterious quiz team, led by “the General” (short for General Knowledge), who start dominating the trivia nights and raise suspicions of cheating.
• Janice Hallett: “They don’t get a single question wrong. And out of several hundred questions, including the marathon, that’s a feat that twitches the radar…” (03:27)

The Epistolary Format: Emails and Texts

• Hallett tells the story through an assemblage of emails, texts, and WhatsApp messages, lending immediacy and the possibility of concealment or misdirection.
• Janice Hallett: “If you’re a screenwriter, you deliver everything via dialogue. That’s character, place, atmosphere, pace. And I’ve simply adapted that for the page…” (05:58)
• The challenges lie in revealing physical details and location, since those are less likely to be explicitly discussed in messaging.

Human Nature and Deception

• Hallett and interviewer Scott Simon perform a brief reading, showcasing the clipped, wry banter between characters investigating the crime.
• Janice Hallett: “Plausible? That’s the sign of a good criminal, Arthur. They look you in the eye and lie without a flicker…” (05:23)

Reflections on Modern Communication

• Hallett comments on the evolution from letters to emails to texts, suggesting literature’s form will keep evolving with communication trends.
• Janice Hallett: “Maybe 40 years ago, we’d have been bemoaning the decline of letter writing, we’re now bemoaning the decline of emails. But for the moment, I don’t think books or literature are going anywhere.” (07:45)

2. Kill Your Darlings by Peter Swanson

(09:51–18:12)

Inverting the Whodunit

• Swanson’s thriller starts with Wendy contemplating the murder of her husband, Tom; the suspense comes not from who commits the crime, but why, and how their relationship fractured so completely.
• Mary Louise Kelly: “Peter Swanson’s new thriller...turns all that on its head. You know who the killer is from the first pages. You spend the rest of the book trying to figure out why.” (10:24)

Structure: Reverse Chronology

• The narrative is told backwards, moving from the present crisis to the couple’s early days in the 1980s, slowly exposing the secrets that fueled their mutual destruction.
• Peter Swanson: “What if we could just really literalize that and have a story go entirely in reverse, so that we slowly learn the events that led to the version of Tom and Wendy...that unhappy version of them in their 50s?” (13:58)

Character Insights

• Tom and Wendy: both writers, but creatively and emotionally adrift.
  • Tom: academic, plagued by creative failure and alcoholism.
  • Wendy: published poet, more detached and less concerned with ego than her husband.
• Peter Swanson: “I think Wendy’s kind of...blase about the whole thing. I mean, it doesn’t mean as much to her ego as it does to Tom, who...feels like he can salvage some of his life by becoming this great writer.” (15:19)

Real Locations & Memorable Details

• The infamous “Exorcist Steps” in Georgetown—a real location—play a symbolic and literal role in the murder plot.
• Mary Louise Kelly: “I live around the corner...those steps have nearly killed me more than once. Not because anybody pushed me, but because they are extraordinarily long and steep. Yes.” (13:07)

Secrets, Guilt, and Relationship Decay

• The couple’s shared and private secrets ultimately break them.
• Mary Louise Kelly: “The thing that has bound these two characters...for decades is a shared secret that they need to keep. And the thing that ultimately breaks them...is that they each have a huge secret or two that they do not share...” (16:50)
• Peter Swanson: “Everyone deals with guilt to a certain degree, and we all deal with it in slightly different ways. And that’s one of the major themes of this book.” (17:20)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Janice Hallett on pub quiz passions:
  “Passions run high at the pub quiz, and it’s not just about winning. It’s about fairness and everyone being equal.” (02:24)

• Janice Hallett on liars:
  “The best liars are the people who convince themselves they’re telling the truth.” (05:44)

• Peter Swanson on backwards storytelling:
  “I thought, what if we could just really literalize that and have a story go entirely in reverse, so that we slowly learn the events that led to the version of Tom and Wendy...” (13:58)

• Swanson on writerly shame:
  “There’s shame attached to him in writing, and I think I felt a little bit of that. I used to not tell people I was a writer because it felt, I don’t know...a little embarrassing.” (16:13)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:22 – Introduction to The Killer Question and Janice Hallett interview
• 02:12 – Hallett discusses the intensity of pub quizzes
• 03:23 – Introduction of “The Shadow Knights”
• 04:10 – Sue and Mal’s secret past as police
• 04:35 – Excerpt performance (Hallett & Simon as Mal and Arthur)
• 05:58 – Discussion of the challenge and craft of writing in texts/emails
• 07:45 – Reflections on the future of literature and communication
• 09:51 – Introduction to Kill Your Darlings
• 10:24 – Reverse “whydunit” structure explained
• 11:30 – Read aloud: Wendy’s murderous thought process
• 13:07 – The Exorcist Steps and crime scene
• 13:56 – Swanson on writing the novel in reverse chronology
• 15:19 – Connection between author and character (Wendy & Tom as writers)
• 16:50 – Secrets and their impact on the marriage
• 17:20 – Guilt as a central theme

Tone & Style

The episode’s conversation is sharp, witty, and psychologically probing. Both authors and their interviewers have a knack for finding humor in dark material, and the tone is engagingly literary and warm—perfect for book lovers and mystery aficionados interested in genre evolution and the deeper “why” behind the crime.