I love a good Golden Age mystery and it was challenges like March Mystery Madness and Christie's Missing Readathon that got me involved in booktube in the first place. So this new readathon is a nod in the direction of the kind of books that will probably always remain my comfort reads.
 

THE RECOMMENDED CHALLENGES WITHIN THIS READATHON ARE JUST THAT... RECOMMENDED. THIS IS ALL IN GOOD FUN FOR THOSE WHO WISH TO SEE HOW MANY OF THE CHALLENGES THEY CAN ACHIEVE. YOU DON'T NEED TO COMPLETE ALL OF THE CHALLENGES TO TAKE PART IN THIS READATHON.
 

Detection Club Members storygraph challenge (no time limit; for author tracking purposes): https://app.thestorygraph.com/reading_challenges/c49db230-a4da-433b-9f3e-7e8b4c5a296c

2025 Cozy with the Detection Club Readthon storygraph challenge:  (that's this challenge right here!)

 

 
1)          The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow
 
2)         All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course
 
3)         Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable
 
4)         No hithero undiscovered poisons should be used, nor any appliance which need a long scientific explanation at the end
 
5)         No Chinaman must figure in the story (Knox’s way of poking fun at thriller writers whose reliance on sinister Oriental villains had already became a cliché)
 
6)         No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have unaccountable intuition which proves to be right
 
7)         The detective must not himself commit the crime
 
8)         The detective must not light on any clues that are not immediately produced for the inspection of the reader
 
9)         The stupid friend, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind
 
10)      Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have duly been prepared for them


 

 
Ruler: Do you promise that your detectives shall well and truly detect the crimes presented to them, using those wits which it may please you to bestow upon them and not placing reliance on, nor making use of Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo-Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery, Coincidence, or Act of God?

Candidate: I do.

Ruler: Do you solemnly swear never to conceal a vital clue from the reader?

Candidate: I do.

Ruler: Do you promise to observe a seemly moderation in the use of Gangs, Conspiracies, Death-Ray, Ghosts, Hypnotism, Trap-Doors, Chinamen, Super-Criminals and Lunatics; and utterly and forever to forswear Mysterious Poisons Unknown to Science?

Candidate: I do.

Ruler: Will you honour the King’s English?

Candidate: I will.

Ruler: You are duly elected a Member of the Detection Club, and if you fail to keep your promises, may other writers anticipate your plots, may your publishers do you down in your contracts, may total strangers sue you for libel, may your pages swarm with misprints and may your sales continually diminish. Amen.