…is the game currently being played on stage, and the crowd is totally into it, and J, who has led our last two workshops just nailed the clue – Oscillating Superfluous Orangutan.

Orangutan’s of course, figure in the novel that is known as the progenitor of the modern mystery, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, but my introduction to the genre happened in a far less grim tale, and starred Nancy Drew. The Hardy Boys followed soon after, but it’s Nancy Drew who really drew me in, even if her version of Girl Power was rather dated when I first read her adventures.

By the time I entered puberty Nancy was approaching reality – she was allowed to feel tingly when Ned was around, and stuff like that. (Hey, I said ‘approaching’), but really the beauty of the Nancy Drew books is that they are so innocent, so that the story comes first, not the romance.