"The Comedy Club Mystery" by Peter Bartram

Colin Crampton of the Brighton Chronicle is on the case again – but this time without having an official reporter’s job.

A local theatrical agent has been found in his office, stabbed to death with a sword. The Chronicle’s theater critic is found there, too – with his hand on the sword and crying hysterically. The police see an open-and-shut case. Crampton isn’t so sure and begins investigating. When the Chronicle fires the critic, Crampton tells his editor that he quits.

The reporter learns that a lot of people are thrilled to see the agent dead, including most of his clients. The case becomes more complicated when Crampton, leaving a comedy club whose performers vastly outnumber the audience, is set upon by two American goon-types, wielding a baseball bat and looking to use Crampton’s head for a ball. They’re only stopped when Crampton’s girlfriend, Shirley Goldsmith, arrives on the scene, brandishing a fire extinguisher. Who would hire American mobster types over the death of a British theatrical agent?

You’d be surprised.

Peter Barttram

The Comedy Club Mystery by Peter Bartram is the newest installment in the Colin Crampton of the Chronicle mysteries, and it’s just as funny and fast-paced as its predecessors. Set in 1965, in rings with authenticity of newspapers of the time, and for good reason. 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.

Bartram fills the story with vivid characters. Frank Figges is the balding, chain-smoking editor who is constantly running interference between his staff and his publisher. Crampton’s landlady pounces faster than a vulture on roadkill. The police captain is a recognizable type, more than ready to lock the theater critic away because of a bad review the critic gave his wife. And Crampton himself is the cynical, wisecracking reporter who barely keeps himself out of the law’s reach.

The Comedy Club Mystery is a fun, entertaining story, and something of an indulgence for those of us who remember what newspapers and reporters used to be like.

Related:

My review of The Tango School Mystery by Peter Bartram.

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

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

My review of Front-Page Murder by Peter Bartram.

My review of The Mother’s Day Mystery by Peter Bartram.

"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.

“Ink” by James Graham

In 1968, Australian Rupert Murdoch bought The News of the World newspaper in the U.K., and followed that up in 1969 with the purchase of The Sun. In 1981, he acquired The Times and the Sunday Times. His media holdings in the United States now include Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and many others.

British journalism (and eventually American journalism) would never be the same. Murdoch embraced new technology, moved operations from Fleet Street, raised the ire of the unions, threw himself (and his newspapers) fully behind Margaret Thatcher and later Tony Blair. The content of the newspapers he acquired changed as well. While the Murdoch newspapers didn’t turn tabloid journalism into an art form, they soon were treading where many newspapers had feared to tread. The journalism establishment was initially outraged; within a few short years, it would be forced to follow Murdoch’s lead.

In the play Ink, British playwright James Graham focuses on the pivotal acquisition of The Sun in 1969, not so much on how it happened but more on the assembling of a staff, the first Murdoch edition of Nov. 17, 1969, and how with a year The Sun was catching up to its bigger competitors. And the play is less about Murdoch and more about Larry Lamb (1929-2000), the editor Murdoch lured to The Sun and who in many ways “out-Murdoched” Murdoch.

This isn’t a play with a build toward a fever-pitch climax. Instead, Ink is a narrative, almost like a snapshot of what happened at The Sun in the early Murdoch years, and the determination that Murdoch and the editors had to overtake The Mirror, then the most widely read newspaper in Britain.  

James Graham

Graham, born in 1982, has written more than 20 plays, and recently had both Ink and Labour of Love being staged at the same time in London. He has gained a reputation for being one of the best of Britain’s playwrights writing about politics. He’s also written for television and worked as an actor.

Today, we’re watching enormous upheavals going on in the media world, brought by technology, the internet, social media, dramatically changing economics, and politics. Some of the seeds of these upheavals can be found in what Rupert Murdoch did in 1969. Ink provides a way to help understand what happened.

Related:

James Graham on writing Ink (video).

Love, Labour, and loss: how James Graham became the king of political theatre – New Statesman.

Writing Rupert, Playing Murdoch, Making Ink – The New York Times.

Top photograph: The first edition of the Sun under Rupert Murdoch, Nov. 17, 1969.