MURDER PIE

Murder Pie is such a great name for a detective novel. This book was published by Sydney’s  Angus & Robertson, in 1936.

The idea of the book was conceived by poet and author Jean Ranken. She convinced sixteen of Sydney’s well known  literary personalities to collaborate on a detective novel.  Each was to write a successive  chapter. None of them had any experience with the genre, but their enthusiasm made up for that. Of course one name stands out…Ethel Turner, author of  Seven Little Australians.

Ethel Turner

Here is full line-up;

Source  The Sun, April 8 1936

It’s not really giving anything away  to say that Miss Rankin got the book off to an intriguing start by having herself commit a murder on the grounds of Sydney University.

Location of the first murder – Sydney University

From there on there were half a dozen  more murders before Noelle Brennan, a radio broadcaster and newspaper writer, wrote the final chapter titled  The Gathered Threads.  She brought the novel to a dramatic conclusion.

Here are the final four chapter headings  from the contents list. Note Ethel Turner’s  contribution.  Her  ‘Death Ride’  suggests that she  couldn’t resist bumping off  yet another victim before handing  the manuscript on to Mrs Brennan.

By all accounts Noelle Brennan had a huge amount of fun with the book. She even  held a launch party at the Forum Club in Elizabeth Street.  A giant pie, its crust aflame with burning rum, was the centrepiece of the supper table. The guests, including many of the book’s collaborators, were invited to guess what the pie contained. No clues were given and no-one guessed correctly. ‘When the pie was opened’ there were no blackbirds singing, but a vast array of cocktail savories  tumbled out to accompany the drinks. 🍹🍸

Murder Pie  is long out of print now, but it was well received and ran to three editions.

I managed to find a review written some seventeen years ago, which concluded;

Thanks Jon.

A copy is held at the Library of New South Wales, so next time I’m there I will sit down and read it slice by slice!  I do hope a pie actually features. 😎