“The Tango School Mystery” by Peter Bartram

Wherever reporter Colin Crampton of the Brighton Evening Chronicle shows up, a dead body is sure to appear. Like when he and his girlfriend are out to dinner, and her rare steak gets a lot rarer when blood starts dripping from the ceiling. 

It’s 1964, and Crampton’s reporting seems to always connect to a crime wave. The dead man turns out to be something of a closet Nazi. And then Crampton’s publisher discovers his brother his missing, and Crampton gets the assignment to find him. Turns out the missing man was interned during World War II for his Nazi sympathies. And there’s a man running for public office who seems to share those Nazi sympathies.

And what is it with this tango dance studio? All the suspect roads seem to lead right to it.

Peter Bartram

The Tango School Mysteryby Peter Bartram is the newest installment of the Colin Crampton mysteries, and it includes Bartram’s trademark humor (often dark, like that rare steak) and insight into the journalism of the 1960s (having worked for a newspaper in the early 1970s, I can testify that the characters at Crampton’s newspaper fit the period, even across the Atlantic). 

Crampton manages to finesse his way out of some seriously uncomfortable (and borderline illegal) situations. He hires a lock picker to get inside a delivery van. When he bangs on the door of the van owner’s house, he finds a dead body. He manages to extricate himself and alert the police without the police knowing his involvement. 

What Crampton comes to realize is that this is no ordinary series of deaths; something major is afoot, and he has to find out what it is.

The Tango School Mysteryis a fun read, like all of the Crampton mysteries. Bartram, himself a former journalist, depicts newspaper life in the 1960s with humor, insight, and even affection. 

Related:

My review of Murder in the Morning Edition by Peter Bartram.

A Journalist and Crime – Stories and a Novella by Peter Bartram.

Top photograph: an Argentine tango dance stage, by Fran Hogan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

"Front Page Murder" by Peter Bartram

Comic postcard artist Archie Flowerdew has been sentenced to hang (on Christmas Eve) for the murder of Percy Despart, a fellow postcard artist – and a man seemingly hated by just about everyone for his malicious artistic use of real Brighton, England, residents. The victim was stabbed in the neck with an artist’s pencil, right in the middle of drawing another nasty postcard. Archie’s niece Tammy believes her uncle to be innocent; he’s been convicted on circumstantial evidence and the police found no direct evidence of his guilt.

Archie knows he’s innocent, too, but won’t confide his alibi because it would, he says, threaten the safety of a woman. The niece spray paints the doors of the Brighton Pavilion and chains herself to a column to call attention to what she says is a miscarriage of justice. And at that point, Colin Crampton, crime reporter for the Brighton Evening Chronicle, intervenes to help. Including helping Tammy move to a succession of safe houses to avoid arrest by the police for her vandalism.

Welcome to Front Page Murder.

Crampton looks at the evidence given at the trial, knows he is dealing with an investigating police officer who’s not terribly competent, and starts his own investigation, racing against the clock ticking toward the hanging. Other promising suspects include a retired army commando, a canon of the local church, and an artist. And all the time Crampton is having to fight off a newspaper executive who wants him fired. The reporter soon find himself in one crazy situation after another, and seems to attract these happenings.

Peter Bartram

Author Peter Bartram has had a long career in journalism, including being a reporter on a weekly newspaper, an editor for newspapers and magazines in London, and freelance journalism – all of which have been utilized in creating the character of Colin Crampton. Bartram is also a member of the Society of Authors and the Crime Writers’ Association. He’s published several Colin Crampton mysteries.

The cast of eccentric characters at the Evening Chronicle are a delight, and for someone like myself who worked in journalism, even for a short time, they are completely recognizable – the garrulous editor, the four ladies of the newspaper morgue (library), the photographer, and the other reporters. (The prodigious consumption of alcohol is also a newspaper staple.)

Front Page Murder is a fun, action-packed, you-never-know-what’s-going-to-happen-next mystery.

Related:

A Journalist and crime – stories and a novella by Peter Bartram.

My review of Murder in the Morning Edition by Peter Bartram.

Top photograph by Bank Phrom via Unsplash. Used with permission.

A journalist and crime – stories and a novella by Peter Bartram

It’s the early 1960s. Colin Crampton is the crime correspondent for the Brighton Evening Chronicle. He’s relatively new to the job, and he has the twin pressures of constant daily deadlines and a competitor who’s been doing the job for decades and is wired into every police and criminal source in the region. So Colin does what he does best – he keeps stumbling into crimes, and when he does, he’s sharp enough to figure out what’s going on, and what to do next (after he phones in his story).

Crampton is the fictional journalist of author Peter Bartram. In addition to several novels, he’s the star of a novella and a collection of short stories that are fun to read.

In Murder in Capital Letters, Crampton agrees to help a friend (a pub owner; Crampton knows a lot of pubs) get his money back. The pub owner bought what he thought was an early 19^th-century love letter from the Prince Regent to his mistress. Crampton spots the numerous errors of the forgery, and then says he’ll go visit the forger himself, an antiques dealer named Frederick Hollingsbourne-Smith. Perhaps there’s a story here; at the least it will be a few free pints.

What he walks in on is the body of Mr. Hollingbourne-Smith, with two bullet holes in it. And Crampton does what any self-respecting reporter would do – and it’s not calling the police. He spends a few minutes investigating the crime scene (for “local color” for the story). And he spots several metal letters used in linotype printing on the dead man’s desk. Then he calls the police.

The problem for the police is there are a multitude of possible suspects – a former wife, a mistress, a former partner, not to mention all the various people the man has cheated and defrauded over the years. But Crampton is on the job – and he desperately needs a follow-up story.

Equally great fun are the seven short stories that comprise Murder from the Newsdesk. In “The Mystery of the African Charity,” a recent widow is being bothered by her nephew, who’s storing used clothes at her house for an African charity. The nephew is not the type to be involved in philanthropy, and a friend of the widow asks Crampton to look into it. “The Mystery of the Two Suitcases” involves suitcases being left and exchanged at the local railway station. And there’s a mink coat inside one of them.

“The Mystery of the Single Red Sock” begins with Crampton buying gin at the off-license when a would-be robber arrives, wielding a baseball bat. Crampton thwarts the robber, but is drawn into a larger story. In “The Mystery at the Beauregard Hotel,” Crampton receives a tip (from his landlady) that there’s been a double murder at establishment, and he looks into it only to find something else entirely. “The Mystery of the Precious Princess” involves a greyhound, and who may be fixing races at the local dog racing track.

“The Mystery of the Note on the Beach” is about an apparent suicide, except Crampton sees something being staged instead of an actual suicide. And in “The Mystery of the Phantom Santa,” a little boy happens to mention to Crampton that he’s been seeing Santa Claus arriving each night at the garage attached to the boy’s house.

Peter Bartram

Bartram has even more fun with his characters’ names. And the Evening Chronicle’s editor, Frank Figgis, is a character drawn straight from life (I knew people just like him when I worked for a newspaper in Texas).

Author Peter Bartram has had a long career in journalism, including being a reporter on a weekly newspaper, an editor for newspapers and magazines in London, and freelance journalism – all of which have been utilized in creating the character of Colin Crampton. Bartram is also a member of the Society of Authors and the Crime Writers’ Association.

Both Murder in Capital Letters and Murder from the Newsdesk are light, easy-to-read, and entertaining mysteries.

Related:

My review of Murder in the Morning Edition by Peter Bartram.

Top photograph by Darren Coleshill via Unsplash. Used with permission.