Tea, Tonic & Toxin is a history of mystery book club and podcast. We’re reading the best mysteries ever written, as well as interviewing some of the world’s best contemporary mystery and thriller writers.
In The Wheel Spins (1938), a young woman’s train journey takes a sinister turn when a fellow passenger mysteriously disappears. Ethel Lina White’s suspenseful, edge-of-your-seat read served as the basis for Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic film The Lady Vanishes. It’s a classic of the genre.
Alex Csurko joins us to discuss The Wheel Spins (The Lady Vanishes) by Welsh-born interwar writer Ethel Lina White.
He is writing his PhD thesis on White, whom he first discovered during his undergraduate studies on Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock made the film The Lady Vanishes based on The Wheel Spins.
Alex is recognized as an up-and-coming authority on White after his interview with BBC Wales Online, published in December 2021, discussing the author’s life and work.
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Alex Csurko is one of the world’s foremost experts on the works of Ethel Lina White, including The Wheel Spins (The Lady Vanishes). In 2023, he contributed an extensive biography on Ethel Lina White for the Gwent Local History Journal.
Most recently, he collaborated with Tony Medawar on the short-story collection Blackout and Other Stories, to be published by Crippen and Landru in 2025.
As a Member of the Magic Circle, Alex also regularly contributes theoretical essays on the craft of Magic for the Society’s prestigious international magazine.
Which Brings Up the Topic of Insanity/Hysteria/Delirium/Neurosis
In The Wheel Turns by Ethel Lina White, there is much talk of Iris’ supposed hysteria and weakened mental state.
Baroness: “There has been no English lady, here, in this carriage, never, at any time, except you. You are the only English lady here” (92). Iris questions her own sanity and reliability. Hare tells her a story of getting kicked in the head whilst playing football. His captain visited him in hospital, but he thought it was the Prince of Wales (Edward VIII).
Iris resolves to talk to the English visitors who saw her with Miss Froy. No one except Miss Barnes admits to seeing her. Then a stranger, Frau Kummer, appears, pretending to be Miss Froy.
The doctor offers to “take care” of Iris by placing her in a nursing home for the night. Yikes!
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