Tea & Murder: An Agatha Christie Podcast

The Witness for the Prosecution with Ilya Milstein

Tea & Murder: An Agatha Christie Podcast

Show Notes

Welcome to season 3 of Tea & Murder! This episode is sponsored by Bond and Grace. Bond and Grace is a women-founded literary brand producing art novels, fine art, and art prints. They make incredible gifts for book lovers of all kinds! Bond and Grace is giving our readers 20% off of their art novels and prints with the code TEA20.

In this episode, host Rebecca Thandi Norman chats with illustrator Ilya Milstein, who among many other things, draws the World of Agatha Christie puzzles! We discuss The Witness for the Prosecution in both its short story and play forms, as well as what it takes to visually adapt Christie's work. Ilya takes us through his journey to become an illustrator and why he is so particular about how he represents characters like Poirot and Marple.

**There are some spoilers in this episode.**

Learn more about Ilya's work.

Buy the World of Agatha Christie puzzles (here's the Poirot one!).

The next episode we'll be reading The Secret Adversary.

Have feedback for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected] and follow us on Instagram at @teaandmurder. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More from Tea & Murder: An Agatha Christie Podcast

Oct 12, 2026

Steven Garner, a legal translator also known for his Instagram account, @christie_in_translation, joins host Rebecca Thandi Norman to discuss the beloved Marple mystery 4:50 from Paddington. The two talk about why this is a great example of Jane Marple's personality, the character of Lucy Eyelesbarrow, and whether this would be an easy book to translate.

Aug 10, 2026

It's our third play on the podcast, and you know what? We should really do this more often. Host Rebecca Thandi Norman speaks with mystery writer Jamie West about Spider's Web, which is Christie's second-longest running play of all time. It quickly becomes clear why: it's funny, engaging, and exactly what you'd expect from a Christie: a twisty murder in the manor house on the English countryside. Jamie discusses how his work in the theatre led him to write his own mystery series, why Christie plays endure today, and what it is about this one that has always stuck out in his mind.

Jul 6, 2026

Writer, historian, and curator Subhadra Das has been exploring the connection between Golden Age detective fiction and eugenics. In this interview, she discusses the late Christie work, Elephants Can Remember. She and host Rebecca Thandi Norman address eugenics concepts across Christie's career, why Poirot would take this case, if "twin plots" ever really work, and which book Rebecca thought she was agreeing to before getting started (spoilers: it wasn't the right one!).

Sep 22, 2025

Ram Murali's debut novel, Death in the Air, is not only a fun and glamorous mystery set in an Indian hotel, it's also a love letter to Agatha Christie. Host Rebecca and Ram discuss homages to Christie's work, how characters are created, and the messy-but-sometimes-fun Death in the Clouds.

Jan 28, 2025

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