S7E16 Death in the Billards Room

Welcome to Mysteries to Die For.I am TG Wolff and am here with Jack, my piano player and producer. This is a podcast where we combine storytelling with original music to put you in the heart of a mystery. All stories are structured to challenge you to beat the detective to the solution. These are arrangements, which means instead of word-for-word readings, you get a performance meant to be heard. Jack and I perform these live, front to back, no breaks, no fakes, no retakes.This is Season 7, Games People Play. Games are about competition conducted according to rules with participants working toward a goal. Games are a part of every culture and are one of the oldest forms of social interaction and engagement. Games can be fun, challenging and exhilarating. They can also be intense, cutthroat, and lethal. This season, our authors have fashioned deadly games and unscrupulous villains to test your detection skills. This is Episode 16, billiards is the featured game. This is Death in the Billiards Room by TG Wolff, an adaptation of The Billiard-Room Mystery by Brian FlynnABOUT BilliardsToday we turn to the Games For Fun website to learn about billiards. Billiards includes all sports that are played with a cue stick and billiard balls. Pool (also called pocket billiards), carom billiards, and snooker are categories of billiards. Our story today referred to a billiards table, but it was more accurate to call it a pocket billiards table or a pool table. The Billiard Congress of America reports the game started as an outdoor described as similar to croquet. It was brought indoors as a tabletop game, possibly originating in France. Initially, it retained some of the hoops and sticks of the outdoor game, but those eventually faded. There are many ways to play billiards, ranging from using 3 balls to 22 balls, with and without pockets. Here’s a fun fact: visitors from England taught Americans how to put a spin on the cue ball, explaining why only in America is that spin called “English.” Check out the sources https://gamesforfun.com/the-history-of-pool-who-how-where-and-billiardshttps://bca-pool.comABOUT The Billiard Room Mystery by Brian FlynnThe Billiard Room Mystery was the first case for barrister Anthony Bathurst and the first mystery for English author Brian Flynn. It was challenging to find information on an author with over 54 mysteries to his name. The best write ups were on Classic Mystery Novel blog and Crime Is Afoot blog. Born in 1885 in Essex, Flynn, like many others of that period, had a varied background. His formal education ended when he went into the civil service, serving as a special constable during WWI. He taught while he worked for the government and enjoyed acting. It was reported that he began writing mysteries because he was not impressed with much of what he read. I can believe that reading the scene where he is critiquing the styles of leading fictional detectives at the time. The Billiard-Room Mystery is now in the public domain and can be downloaded from the Project Gutenburg. Dean Street Press has been reprinting much of Brian Flynn’s catalogue, which can be found at online retailers. https://classicmystery.blog/classic-bibliographies/brian-flynn/https://jiescribano.wordpress.com/2020/03/27/brian-flynn-1885-1958/https://www.deanstreetpress.co.uk/pages/author_page/51https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58413ABOUT TG WolffLike you, I’m not one thing. I’m a writer, an engineer, a wife, and a mother. What is first on the list depends on the day. Beyond the title I claim, I’m a person who loves learning and thoroughly enjoys a good puzzle, is creative and gets bored easily. I hold a BS in Civil Engineering from Case Western Reserve University and an MS in Civil Engineering from Cleveland State University, which gives me absolutely no background in writing, but I do it anyway. Writing mysteries and engineering isn’t as different as you’d think. Both require using logic and process to get from a starting problem to a solution.Find me at www.tgwolff.com