Jamie Bernthal-Hooker
@jcbernthal.com
Agatha Christie, queer theory, and offshore wind in one strange mix. I write crime fiction and books about crime fiction. Think of an awkward, once-high-achieving millennial Brit. Hello!
Next month, the Seagull Amateurs, my local theatre company, is staging a play I wrote! Seeing the cast in character is really special.
October 24, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Next month, the Seagull Amateurs, my local theatre company, is staging a play I wrote! Seeing the cast in character is really special.
I’m so excited that, in 2 days, we are launching both Silent Echoes, a golden age crime conference and Ten Little Mysteries, a book of new fiction inspired by the Golden Age. Get a sneak preview of the introduction here: jcbernthal.com/2025/09/07/c...
September 10, 2025 at 8:00 PM
I’m so excited that, in 2 days, we are launching both Silent Echoes, a golden age crime conference and Ten Little Mysteries, a book of new fiction inspired by the Golden Age. Get a sneak preview of the introduction here: jcbernthal.com/2025/09/07/c...
After launching the very exciting no-longer-secret project, I’m at the theatre. It is funny.
April 30, 2025 at 7:40 PM
After launching the very exciting no-longer-secret project, I’m at the theatre. It is funny.
❗We are excited to announce our keynote speaker for 'Silent Echoes: Golden Age Crime Fiction and Trauma', at FSU's London Study Centre in September. Professor Jessica Meyer @thehistorygirl1.bsky.social is an expert on masculinity, war, and popular culture whose work we LOVE. We cannot wait.
April 21, 2025 at 4:22 PM
❗We are excited to announce our keynote speaker for 'Silent Echoes: Golden Age Crime Fiction and Trauma', at FSU's London Study Centre in September. Professor Jessica Meyer @thehistorygirl1.bsky.social is an expert on masculinity, war, and popular culture whose work we LOVE. We cannot wait.
You can now get Jessica Brick Investigates as an ebook! Like the physical book, it contains the first 5 comic mystery stories featuring my amateur sleuth Jessica Brick (she models herself on Miss Marple, but isn't very good). www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0F3V75GV3/
April 6, 2025 at 5:43 PM
You can now get Jessica Brick Investigates as an ebook! Like the physical book, it contains the first 5 comic mystery stories featuring my amateur sleuth Jessica Brick (she models herself on Miss Marple, but isn't very good). www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0F3V75GV3/
What a joy to talk all things Agatha Christie with Mark Perzel for McFarland’s Best Part of the Book podcast. The podcast tells you how to get an exclusive discount on my gargantuan encyclopaedic AGATHA CHRISTIE: A COMPANION TO THE MYSTERY FICTION! bestpartofthebook.alitu.com
March 17, 2025 at 2:38 PM
What a joy to talk all things Agatha Christie with Mark Perzel for McFarland’s Best Part of the Book podcast. The podcast tells you how to get an exclusive discount on my gargantuan encyclopaedic AGATHA CHRISTIE: A COMPANION TO THE MYSTERY FICTION! bestpartofthebook.alitu.com
The couple moved around the States. By the 1970s, Pearl's husband was lodging at a bordello in Mississippi, run by the legendary ‘Mississippi Madam,’ Nellie Jackson, whom he briefly married. One problem: he was still married to Pearl.
March 14, 2025 at 9:54 PM
The couple moved around the States. By the 1970s, Pearl's husband was lodging at a bordello in Mississippi, run by the legendary ‘Mississippi Madam,’ Nellie Jackson, whom he briefly married. One problem: he was still married to Pearl.
This is Pearl. She was born in 1923. Like both her parents, she worked in clothing: she gave her job as ‘court seamstress’ and seems to have had a decent social life. During the war, she worked with the wounded and met a lot of people, including a Scottish-Canadian veteran.
March 14, 2025 at 9:54 PM
This is Pearl. She was born in 1923. Like both her parents, she worked in clothing: she gave her job as ‘court seamstress’ and seems to have had a decent social life. During the war, she worked with the wounded and met a lot of people, including a Scottish-Canadian veteran.
This is my brilliantly artistic grandmother, who died 10 years ago yesterday. She was born during the Second World War and adopted. In her last years, before a rapid cancer ended things too soon, she tried to find out more about her roots.
March 14, 2025 at 9:54 PM
This is my brilliantly artistic grandmother, who died 10 years ago yesterday. She was born during the Second World War and adopted. In her last years, before a rapid cancer ended things too soon, she tried to find out more about her roots.
She kindly signed my copy of ‘The Female Detective’. This is widely held to be the first novel featuring a female detective but it was written by a bloke and eventually republished with a male intro and foreword. So, for a few years, I asked women at the top of the crime writing tree to sign it.
March 11, 2025 at 10:18 AM
She kindly signed my copy of ‘The Female Detective’. This is widely held to be the first novel featuring a female detective but it was written by a bloke and eventually republished with a male intro and foreword. So, for a few years, I asked women at the top of the crime writing tree to sign it.
“What we ask is to be human individuals, however peculiar and unexpected.”
For #InternationalWomensDay, the @goldenagemysteries.bsky.social gang and I are reading Dorothy L. Sayers’ ‘Are Women Human?’ A sometime witty, mostly exasperated reply to very silly attitudes in 1938, which still persist.
For #InternationalWomensDay, the @goldenagemysteries.bsky.social gang and I are reading Dorothy L. Sayers’ ‘Are Women Human?’ A sometime witty, mostly exasperated reply to very silly attitudes in 1938, which still persist.
March 8, 2025 at 11:47 AM
“What we ask is to be human individuals, however peculiar and unexpected.”
For #InternationalWomensDay, the @goldenagemysteries.bsky.social gang and I are reading Dorothy L. Sayers’ ‘Are Women Human?’ A sometime witty, mostly exasperated reply to very silly attitudes in 1938, which still persist.
For #InternationalWomensDay, the @goldenagemysteries.bsky.social gang and I are reading Dorothy L. Sayers’ ‘Are Women Human?’ A sometime witty, mostly exasperated reply to very silly attitudes in 1938, which still persist.
Finally, a fun fact. The celebrated Anjelica Huston, here playing Lady Tresillian via Queen Elizabeth II, is the granddaughter of Walter Huston, who played Dr Armstrong in the iconic 1945 And Then There Were None.
March 5, 2025 at 11:16 PM
Finally, a fun fact. The celebrated Anjelica Huston, here playing Lady Tresillian via Queen Elizabeth II, is the granddaughter of Walter Huston, who played Dr Armstrong in the iconic 1945 And Then There Were None.
Finally seen #TowardsZero. It’s good. I will never truly appreciate this promotional image but was pleasantly surprised more than once. It was very nice to see Burgh Island.
March 5, 2025 at 11:16 PM
Finally seen #TowardsZero. It’s good. I will never truly appreciate this promotional image but was pleasantly surprised more than once. It was very nice to see Burgh Island.
I love amateur dramatics - supporting and taking part. Did a show over the weekend (I played a murderer!) and rehearsing the next one tonight. A nice way to build community and confidence, share culture, and escape into a microcosm where everything is simultaneously too serious and too unserious.
March 4, 2025 at 4:57 PM
I love amateur dramatics - supporting and taking part. Did a show over the weekend (I played a murderer!) and rehearsing the next one tonight. A nice way to build community and confidence, share culture, and escape into a microcosm where everything is simultaneously too serious and too unserious.
But as long as it captures some element of the book without cheapening the source material, I will be very happy indeed. More people need to read, and pretend they’ve always loved, Towards Zero, as they did with Murder is Easy last year.
March 2, 2025 at 3:05 PM
But as long as it captures some element of the book without cheapening the source material, I will be very happy indeed. More people need to read, and pretend they’ve always loved, Towards Zero, as they did with Murder is Easy last year.
How do I entertain myself? By attempting elderly crosswords, it seems. This 'Crime and Detection'-themed trivia crossword appeared in The Times in December 1938 and very Golden Age-y.
February 28, 2025 at 5:14 PM
How do I entertain myself? By attempting elderly crosswords, it seems. This 'Crime and Detection'-themed trivia crossword appeared in The Times in December 1938 and very Golden Age-y.
Speckle declined to have his photograph taken.
January 21, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Speckle declined to have his photograph taken.
Recorded two podcasts this week on wildly different topics. Feeling like a renaissance man. (Actually, I’m feeling like a coffee.)
January 17, 2025 at 5:03 PM
Recorded two podcasts this week on wildly different topics. Feeling like a renaissance man. (Actually, I’m feeling like a coffee.)
Wait, I have a theory. What if they were trying to banish Linda this whole time and we just didn’t notice because of the spelling?
#TheTraitors
#TheTraitors
January 16, 2025 at 8:15 PM
Wait, I have a theory. What if they were trying to banish Linda this whole time and we just didn’t notice because of the spelling?
#TheTraitors
#TheTraitors
12 January: When Agatha Christie died in 1976, West End theatres dimmed their lights. Christie is a towering figure in British literature and culture, in part because she never positioned herself as one.
Image shows Ben Twiston-Davies' Agatha Christie memorial, near Covent Garden.
#OnThisDay
Image shows Ben Twiston-Davies' Agatha Christie memorial, near Covent Garden.
#OnThisDay
January 12, 2025 at 9:09 AM
12 January: When Agatha Christie died in 1976, West End theatres dimmed their lights. Christie is a towering figure in British literature and culture, in part because she never positioned herself as one.
Image shows Ben Twiston-Davies' Agatha Christie memorial, near Covent Garden.
#OnThisDay
Image shows Ben Twiston-Davies' Agatha Christie memorial, near Covent Garden.
#OnThisDay
January 10, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Writing fiction, not to a deadline, for the first time in months and it’s like, ‘ahh, that’s what was wrong with me’
January 6, 2025 at 7:48 PM
Writing fiction, not to a deadline, for the first time in months and it’s like, ‘ahh, that’s what was wrong with me’
Three queens referenced in one photo. #WitnessForTheProsecution
December 7, 2024 at 2:09 PM
Three queens referenced in one photo. #WitnessForTheProsecution
In our back garden, I can see two stars with my naked eye, but the phone sees all this.
December 1, 2024 at 10:43 PM
In our back garden, I can see two stars with my naked eye, but the phone sees all this.
