Two debut novels, two murder mysteries set in the United Kingdom

Summary

NPR’s Book of the Day — Summary

Episode: Two debut novels, two murder mysteries set in the United Kingdom
Date: January 9, 2026
Host: Andrew Limbong
Featured Interviews: Jenny Godfrey with Scott Simon, Chris Chibnall with Mary Louise Kelly

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Episode Overview

This episode spotlights two debut British murder mysteries, each with its unique take on the genre and setting. The first is “The List of Suspicious Things” by Jenny Godfrey—a coming-of-age story set in Yorkshire during the Yorkshire Ripper’s reign of terror. The second is “Death at the White Hart” by Chris Chibnall, a small-town whodunit in Dorset imbued with community, nostalgia, and the decline of the traditional British pub.

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Segment 1: Jenny Godfrey & The List of Suspicious Things

(Interview with Scott Simon, 01:08–09:05)

Main Themes & Purpose

• A murder mystery entwined with a coming-of-age tale, set against the backdrop of Yorkshire during Peter Sutcliffe’s (the Yorkshire Ripper) killings.
• Explores the personal and communal impact of serial murders, childhood innocence, and the experience of growing up in 1970s England.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

• Personal Connection to the Ripper

  • Godfrey reveals a personal link: “It came apparent very quickly that my dad both knew him and had worked with him for some time.” (03:37)

• Setting: Yorkshire in the Late 1970s

  • Described as grim, with a struggling economy and skepticism toward Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher:
    • “Yorkshire wasn’t the happiest place. The economy was extremely depressed... Thatcher... was seen as somebody who would make things worse for us, which actually did prove to be true.” (03:06)
  • Despite hardship, Yorkshire humor and resilience shine through the characters.

• Characters: Miv and Sharon

  • 12-year-old girls determined to make a “list of suspicious things and people” to catch the killer—and maybe claim a police reward.
    • “If we catch him, we might get the reward the police are offering... think of all the books and lip glosses and sweets we could want.” (01:33)
    • Godfrey admits both girls are partly inspired by herself and her friends:
      • “There is so much of me in Miv in particular... I was very much like Miv as a child. I would have projects and hobbies and things that got me through and books of course.” (03:48)

• Children and Fear

  • Godfrey discusses how children were not sheltered from the ongoing crimes:
    • “We weren’t shielded from the news necessarily... there was no such thing as helicopter parenting.” (04:48)
    • The result: viewing their community with suspicion and anxiety, reflected in the girls’ list-making.

• Community, Suspicion, and Racism

  • The omnipresence of fear led people to view neighbors differently:
    • “We actually did start to look at everybody through a different lens... Suddenly we started to look at our friends and family differently as a consequence.” (05:43)
  • Touches on the experience of racism in 1970s Yorkshire, as seen through characters Omar and Ishtiaq Bashir:
    • “Race and racism was a part of 1970s West Yorkshire... Ishtiaq and Omar experience a lot of racism throughout the novel and a lot of acceptance and community as well.” (06:37)

• Godfrey's Perspective as a Bookseller

  • “What you learn, thankfully, is that there is a book for everybody, that if you write a book, someone somewhere is going to love it.” (07:49)

• Honoring the Victims

  • Godfrey chooses to include the names of the murdered women at her novel’s conclusion:
    • “I did not want this to be a book about him... it’s a book about the impact of his crimes on a community... I wanted to conclude it by honoring those victims. It felt really important for me to do that.” (08:30)

Notable Quotes

• “As you can see from the novel, the kind of humour and stoicism of Yorkshire really shines through.” — Jenny Godfrey (03:06)
• “There is so much of me in Miv in particular and so much of the best friends I’ve had over the years in Sharon.” — Jenny Godfrey (03:48)
• “We weren’t shielded from the news necessarily... so although the list highlights the suspicious people in the area, there is no doubt that Miv and Sharon would have been looking out for people that might have been suspicious anyway.” — Jenny Godfrey (04:48)
• “I did not want this to be a book about him... I wanted to conclude it by honoring those victims.” — Jenny Godfrey (08:30)

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Segment 2: Chris Chibnall & Death at the White Hart

(Interview with Mary Louise Kelly, 09:46–17:47)

Main Themes & Purpose

• A classic village murder mystery with modern sensibilities set in Dorset.
• Explores the role of the local pub as the heart of the community, amid the broader theme of change and decline in rural England.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

• Opening Mystery

  • The novel opens with the landlord of The White Hart pub, Jim Tiernan, found dead—upright, tied to a chair, with deer antlers on his head.
  • The crime sets the entire village into suspicion and upheaval:
    • “You could surmise that a lot of the people in the pub that night in the village of Fleetcombe have reasons for wanting him dead.” — Chris Chibnall (10:49)

• Contemporary Golden Age Mystery

  • Chibnall aimed for a modernized Agatha Christie vibe:
    • “I really wanted to write a murder mystery where it had all of those sort of golden age great page turning, Agatha Christie style setting, but who live lives as we would all recognize them now.” (11:23)

• Small Town Dynamics

  • Everyone knows everyone, which both narrows and complicates the list of suspects:
    • “Everybody knows everybody else’s business, where they come from, their histories... that pressure cooker atmosphere.” (12:16)

• Lead Detective: DS Nicola Bridge

  • Nicola returns home for a quieter life but instead leads a shocking investigation with a rookie partner:
    • “Her boss has gone... headquarters aren’t working and she partners up with a young graduate trainee, Harry... what she brings is simply the knowledge of the area and her understanding of people.” (12:56)
  • Her approach is detailed and methodical:
    • “Don’t worry about the motive yet... just figure out the facts, what happened, when, where, how, and then we’ll figure out the why.” (13:40)

• Pub Rivalry as Social Commentary

  • The murder is entangled with a rivalry between Fleetcombe’s traditional “drinker’s pub” (The White Hart) and the modernized gastropub (The Fox):
    • “The White Hart is a drinker’s pub... The other pub in town is the Fox, and that has become a gastropub... a bit of a crisis of the pub industry in Britain right now—pubs are closing at a really swift rate.” (14:52)
  • Pubs serve as a metaphor for community, change, and the struggle to maintain tradition.

• Endings and Change

  • The story is bookended by a death: the landlord at the beginning, and the pub (closing for good) at the end.
    • “The sense of change that is going through, I’m sure not just the UK, but all around the world... what is at the heart of the community, how we find our community these days, is it in buildings, is it in people, is it in traditions?” (16:14)

• Setting and Personal Connection

  • Chibnall draws on lived experience:
    • “I’ve been here 20 years now and I live a mile from the beach where we film Broadchurch. I’m in the middle of the community that I’m writing about.” (16:45)

• Why Murder in the Countryside?

  • The genre thrives on the paradox between idyllic settings and dark deeds:
    • “The tension between those two acts is what becomes... delightful to a reader as well as interesting and provocative.” (17:13)

Notable Quotes

• “You could surmise that a lot of the people in the pub that night... have reasons for wanting him dead.” — Chris Chibnall (10:49)
• “Everybody knows everybody else’s business... that just becomes very delicious in terms of that pressure cooker atmosphere.” — Chris Chibnall (12:16)
• “What I wanted to do with that rivalry between the pubs is... the pub as a metaphor for the country.” — Chris Chibnall (14:52)
• “What is at the heart of the community—how we find our community these days, is it in buildings, is it in people, is it in traditions?” — Chris Chibnall (16:14)
• “The tension between the beautiful nature of the landscape and the idyllic nature of the village... contrasts with the heinous act of murder.” — Chris Chibnall (17:13)

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• 01:08 — Introduction to Jenny Godfrey’s The List of Suspicious Things
• 03:06 — Discussion about Yorkshire's economic and political climate in the '70s
• 03:48 — Godfrey discusses autobiographical influences in her characters
• 04:48 — Commentary on how crime shaped children's perceptions
• 06:37 — On representing race and racism in the novel
• 07:49 — What bookselling teaches about readership and writing
• 08:30 — Honoring the victims in the book
• 09:46 — Introduction to Chris Chibnall’s Death at the White Hart
• 10:49 — The murder and setting the scene in Fleetcombe
• 11:23 — Chibnall’s intent to create a modern golden-age mystery novel
• 12:16 — The complexity of a murder mystery in a small town
• 12:56 — Nicola Bridge’s investigative approach
• 14:52 — The symbolic significance of Britain’s pubs
• 16:14 — Themes of endings and community change
• 16:45 — Chibnall’s personal connection to Dorset

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Tone and Style

Both interviews maintain a warm, conversational, and insightful tone—balancing cozy murder mystery talk with thoughtful consideration of class, history, and community. The authors’ voices are engaging, with touches of humor and poignancy throughout.

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Summary Takeaway

This episode offers two sharply different but equally rich British murder mysteries. Jenny Godfrey’s novel is a sensitive, autobiographically-inflected tale set during a real-life crime wave, exploring the intersection of innocence, fear, and community. Chris Chibnall blends classic whodunit structure with social commentary about the fate of English country pubs and ties of locality, using the framework of a traditional village mystery to probe broader questions of belonging and change.

Transcript

[Andrew Limbong]

Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. Today we've got a pair of British murder mysteries for you to cozy up with. Up ahead, Chris Chibnall, the creator of the crime drama Broadchurch, is on the pod to talk about his latest novel. But first, Jenny Godfrey's debut, the List of Suspicious Things is a murder mystery novel, but it's also a coming of age story because she grew up in the midst of the Yorkshire Ripper, the English serial killer who killed 13 women in the 70s. His story was all over the news when she was growing up and it turns out she had a personal connection to the guy. She explains it to NPR's Scott Simon after the break.

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[Scott Simon]

See mintmobile.com It's 1979 and the news in Yorkshire is grim. Mills are closing, families are struggling, and a killer called the Yorkshire Ripper in news accounts has murdered women and is still at large. Miv And Sharon, her 12 year old local girls who get an idea. Miv tells Sharon, we'll make a list.

[Jenny Godfrey]

I said, a list of the people and things we see that are suspicious and then we'll investigate them. And why exactly would we do this? Well, if we catch him, we might get the reward the police are offering. I said, think of all the things we could buy, all the books and lip glosses and sweets we could want. Sharon's reflection was now smiling at me. But even if we didn't think about all the prostitutes we would save, even though neither of us knew what prostitutes were, I thought the idea of saving others would appeal to Sharon, who was the kindest person I knew and everyone would know who I, I mean, who we were.

[Scott Simon]

I said that is Jenny Godfrey reading from her debut novel, the List of Suspicious Things. Jenny Godfrey joins us now from Somerset in the uk. Thanks so much for being with us.

[Jenny Godfrey]

Thank you so much for having me, Scott. It's an absolute privilege.

[Scott Simon]

The Yorkshire killings aren't just an event from history for you, are they?

[Jenny Godfrey]

No. One of my most vivid childhood memories is of the day that Peter Sutcliffe, the man who was known as the Yorkshire Ripper, was caught because it Came apparent very quickly that my dad both knew him and had worked with him for some time.

[Scott Simon]

Tell us about the north of England and Yorkshire at this time. There's a lot of anger at the new Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. But the mills were already in a bad way, weren't they?

[Jenny Godfrey]

Yes. So Yorkshire wasn't the happiest place. The economy was extremely depressed and Margaret Thatcher, who was a populist right wing Prime Minister wasn't welcomed in the north and was seen as somebody who would make things worse for us, which actually did prove to be true. But as you can see from the novel, the kind of humour and stoicism of Yorkshire really shines through. It's very much in the character of the people who live there.

[Scott Simon]

And tell us please about Miv and Sharon. It's irresistible to wonder how much of you they carry around.

[Jenny Godfrey]

Oh, I know some debut novelists don't like the question is the novel autobiographical? And of course the events of the novel absolutely are. But there is so much of me in Miv in particular and so much of the best friends I've had over the years. In Sharon I was very much like Miv as a child. I would have projects and hobbies and things that got me through and books of course. I was definitely a child who when anything was difficult was happening, I would disapp inside a story and the girls in the book manage the very grown up and adult threats that are around them through making this list and somehow making it all manageable.

[Scott Simon]

Does putting a list together make Miv and Sharon see people suspiciously?

[Jenny Godfrey]

Very much so. And it's impossible for me to overstate that the impact that the crimes had on young children in the north at the time because we weren't shielded from the news necessarily, there was no such thing as helicopter parenting. So even as a young child in Yorkshire at the time I knew about the murders, I knew about the Yorkshire Ripper. And so although the list highlights the suspicious people in the area, there is no doubt that Mirvan and Sharon would have been looking out for people that might have been suspicious anyway.

[Scott Simon]

Well, I think for example of Mr. Bashir who I don't hesitate to call the nicest man in the book, always singing Elton John songs. How could they ever find him suspicious, even remotely?

[Jenny Godfrey]

Do you know, I'm so glad Scott, that you loved Omar Bashir. He is so close to my heart and he's my favorite character. You're not supposed to say that cause you're not supposed to have favorite characters. It's like having a favorite child. But I guess what I wanted to come across was because of the kind of permeating fear created by the murders, we actually did start to look at everybody through a different lens, especially when the police started to put messages out through the media through that he is somebody's father, he is somebody's son, somebody knows him. And suddenly we started to look at our friends and family differently as a consequence of that.

[Scott Simon]

Yeah, I found myself worried, loving and worried about his son too. Ishtak.

[Jenny Godfrey]

Yes. And certainly race and racism was a part of 1970s West Yorkshire like it's a part of modern day life. And I felt that I absolutely needed to write about that and reflect it in the book. Ishtiaq and Omar experience a lot of racism throughout the novel and a lot of acceptance and community as well.

[Scott Simon]

Thankfully, you are a bookseller as well as a novelist.

[Jenny Godfrey]

That's correct, yes. So when I started writing the book, I decided that what I would need to do was to understand how books get from writers into readers hands. So I applied to my local bookshop here in Taunton in Somerset to become a part time bookseller. And I only actually intended to do it for one Christmas. But it turned out that I absolutely love being a bookseller because it essentially means I get to talk about books a lot.

[Scott Simon]

What do you learn about being a novelist by being a bookseller?

[Jenny Godfrey]

What you learn, thankfully, is that there is a book for everybody, that if you write a book, someone somewhere is going to love it. And I was very relieved to discover that there are so many niche interests that people have in books. It would take more writers than there are in the world to fulfill them.

[Scott Simon]

That is very reassuring. You bring this novel to what I don't without giving anything away. A stunning conclusion. It is important for you to include the names of everyone who was murdered as well.

[Jenny Godfrey]

Yes.

[Scott Simon]

Why did you make a point of that?

[Jenny Godfrey]

Because I did not want this to be a book about him. And it isn't a book about him. It's a book about the impact of his crimes on a community. But it's not a book about the murderer or the murders. But at the same time they do form very much the spine of the story. And I wanted to conclude it by honoring those victims. It felt really important for me to do that.

[Scott Simon]

Jenny Godfrey, her debut novel, the List of Suspicious Things. Thank you so much for being with us.

[Jenny Godfrey]

Thank you very much for having me. Scott.

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[Andrew Limbong]

Was a coming of age story disguised as a murder mystery, Chris Chibnall's murder mystery, one could argue is about city planning and the importance of pubs. It's titled Death at the White Hart. And here he is talking to NPR's Mary Louise Kelly.

[Mary Louise Kelly]

Sometimes crime thrillers are a slow burn. Other times there is a dead body on page two. In the novel Death at the White Hart, that dead body has been found upright, tied to a chair in the middle of the road with deer antlers affixed to its head. The chilling discovery sends the village of Fleetcombe into a tailspin. While author Chris Chibnall is no stranger to a murder mystery set in the uk, he created the British TV crime drama Broadchur. He is here with us now to talk about his debut novel, Death at the White Hart. Chris Chibnall, welcome.

[Chris Chibnall]

Thank you very much. What a great introduction. I'm very delighted to be here with you.

[Mary Louise Kelly]

Well, introduce us to this body who is dead. What questions does this unleash in the tiny town of Fleetcombe?

[Chris Chibnall]

The dead body is the landlord of the local pub in Fleetcombe, the White Hart of the title. And the landlord is called Jim Tiernan. And he's really just had a rambunctious night in his pub where many things have gone on. And you could surmise that a lot of the people in the pub that night in the village of Fleetcombe have reasons for wanting him dead.

[Mary Louise Kelly]

Yes. There's a whole cast of characters, all of whom are somehow connected to Jim and all of whom are acting fishy as your, as your plot gets underway.

[Chris Chibnall]

That's right, yeah. Yeah. And I think part of this is I really wanted to write a murder mystery where it had all of those sort of golden age great page turning, Agatha Christie style setting, but who live lives as we would all recognize them now.

[Mary Louise Kelly]

Yeah, I mean, who doesn't want to write a book like that? Congrats to you. How am I doing? I'm right there with you. I will say. I mean the town, it's small, there are two pubs and we're gonna get to that in A second. The white hart being one, it makes it. On the one hand, for whodunit, you could introduce us to pretty much everyone in town. I felt like I would walk down every street and be saying hi to people as we went. On the other hand, it makes it tricky maybe to figure out who done it because everybody knows everybody, everybody's looking out for everybody, everybody's friends.

[Chris Chibnall]

Yeah, everybody knows everybody else's business, where they come from, their histories. And so everybody's locked in together, looking suspiciously across the bar or the village street at each other. And that just becomes very delicious in terms of that pressure cooker atmosphere.

[Mary Louise Kelly]

One of my favorite characters is the new Detective Sergeant Fleetcomb. This is Nicola Bridge. She has just moved back here. This is her hometown. She's back, she's not quite sure how she feels about that and suddenly she finds herself leading a murder investigation. What is her strategy? How is she looking for a suspect? How is she willing people out?

[Chris Chibnall]

Well, I think she is having to deal with a number of things. One of the things she's returned to Fleetcombe in the area for is to have a bit more of a quiet life. But what she's returned to is a police force that is not quite as was promised to her when she was recruited. Her boss has gone, the Chief constable has been edged out in disgrace, the headquarters aren't working and she partners up with a young graduate trainee, Harry, who is known as Westlife, nicknamed Westlife for his boy band good looks. And really I think what she brings in her methodology is simply the name, knowledge of the area and her understanding of people.

[Mary Louise Kelly]

So to summarize, she has moved back home looking to quiet down her life and instead she finds herself with no team and a really grisly homicide where she is the lead investigator. So good luck, Nicola. You mentioned her kind of boy band, good looking partner who she keeps saying, look, don't worry about the motive yet, don't try to figure out the why, just figure out the facts, what happened, when, where, how, and then we'll figure out the why. It reminded me a little bit of being a reporter at my job.

[Chris Chibnall]

Oh, that's interesting. There's a lot of similarities, isn't there, in terms of that putting the story together, putting the case together and finding the narrative and not jumping to conclusions until you have the facts. So that's really interesting. You kind of identify that.

[Mary Louise Kelly]

Okay, so the pub, the White Hart of the title I mentioned, this is one of two pubs in town. There is tension between them hovering over your whole story is this Question of whether this town is big enough for both of them. Would you describe these pubs and how they function as the heart of this whole community?

[Chris Chibnall]

Yeah. The White Hart is a drinker's pub. A bit more spit and sawdust and wooden tables and is a little bit run down. And the other pub in town is the Fox, and that has become a gastropub and much more known for its food offer, a little bit more modern. And what I wanted to do with that rivalry between the pubs is there's a bit of a crisis of. Of the pub industry in. In Britain right now. Pubs are closing at a really swift rate. And that sense of the pub as a metaphor for the country and sort of the defining image of. Of Brit. I really wanted to look into what are pubs for? Why do we want them? What is the thing about gathering in a bar or a pub and what do we expect from it and how have they changed over the years?

[Mary Louise Kelly]

So, in a way, your novel begins and ends with a death at the White Hart. At the start of the novel, it is Jim Tiernan, the pub's owner, who we spend the rest of the book trying to unravel how he ended up in this chair in the middle of the road with deer antlers on his head. At the end, it's the pub itself that is dying. It's closing its doors for good, which struck me as a lovely symmetry. And I also wondered if that was intentional. Were you trying to leave us, the reader, with something?

[Chris Chibnall]

Yeah, I think it's the sense of change that is going through, I'm sure not just the uk, but all around the world. And in terms of how these communities function, what is at the heart of the community, how we find our community these days, is it in buildings, is it in people, is it in traditions? And that's what the novel is, hopefully, alongside the great twisty turning mystery, is investigating.

[Mary Louise Kelly]

And this is your home, right? Chris Chibnall, you've lived in Dorset, England, for decades.

[Chris Chibnall]

Yeah, I've been here 20 years now and I live a mile from the beach where we film Broadchurch. I'm in the middle of the community that I'm writing about in Death at the White Hart. So this area and these people and all of our lives are of profound and fundamental interest to me.

[Mary Louise Kelly]

And a lot of murders, as you would seem to tell it. Is there something about this countryside that inspires grim stories? Or do you think wherever you lived you had managed to come up with something?

[Chris Chibnall]

I mean, I think the lovely thing about the countryside, or chocolate Box Village murder mystery is the dissonance between the two things. You know, you have the beautiful nature of the landscape and the idyllic nature of the village and then contrasting with the heinous act of a murder. So they are very, very rare. Think the tension between those two acts is what becomes, you know, hopefully delightful to a reader as well as interesting and provocative.

[Mary Louise Kelly]

Chris Chibnall is author of the new novel Death at the White Hart. Thank you.

[Chris Chibnall]

Thank you.

[Andrew Limbong]

And that's it for this week on NPR's Book of the Day. Let us know what you think. You can write to [e-mail] I'm Andrew Limbong. The podcast is produced by by Chloe Weiner and edited by Megan Sullivan with help from Ivy Buck. Our founding editor is Petra Mayer. The show elements for this week were produced and edited by Shannon Rhodes, Samantha Balaban, Adriana Gallardo, Margo Bower, Line, Emiko Tamagawa, Todd Munt, Melissa Gray, Gabriel Donatov, Ed McNulty, Justine Kennan and Katherine Fink. Yolando Sanguini is our executive producer. Thanks for listening.

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