"Duplicity" by Pete Brassett

Angus and Heather Buchanan and Remo and Anita Carducci have been friends for more than 40 years. Angus and Remo had been crewmates together on a cargo ship, and they’ve been close friends ever since. They went into business together, operating a chain of restaurants, and they’d been known to step on the other side of the law to make a tidy profit. 

On the second Sunday of each month, the Buchanans and the Carduccis get together for lunch, alternating between their homes. This month, it’s the Carduccis’ turn to host, and they fully enjoy the meal and the company. Angus had a gift of a special liquor he left in the car, and he steps out for a moment to retrieve it. But he doesn’t return. The car is still there; his phone and wallet are in his coat pocket hanging on a hook in the hallway. But Angus has vanished.

 

Detective Inspector James Munro has retired from police work, but he’s helping his former sergeant Charlotte West move into her new flat. Despite his best efforts (and largely because the Ayr police department is short several police officers), he finds himself pulled into working with West to investigate the disappearance. And while the surface of the case may look placid, below the surface is anything but placid. Everything changes, and even the changes don’t stay the same.

 

Pete Brassett

Duplicity is the fourth in the Munro and West mystery series by British author Pete Brassett, and it’s a story in which the cup of duplicity overfloweth. Disappearance will lead to murder, which leads to financial shenanigans, drug running, and even West’s old boyfriend (now homeless) showing up looking for a place to stay while he “gets back on his feet.”

 

Brassett, a native Scot, has published 10 novels in the Munro and West series, as well as a number of general fiction and mystery titles. 

 

Duplicity is a story which you have to pay close attention to what’s happening; situations and reality change so much that the people you think you know at the beginning are almost strangers by the end.

 

Related:

 

She by Pete Brassett.

 

Avarice by Pete Brassett.

 

 

Some Thursday Readings

 

Hiding in Plain Sight: The Life and Work of Poet Charles Causley – Patrick Gale at Literary Hub.

 

Invitations to Dwell – Carter Johnson at Front Porch Republic.

Belle Boyd: Cleopatra of the Secession

Belle Boyd (1844-1900) was 16 when the Civil War began. A member of a prominent family in Martinsburg, Virginia (it became part of WestVirginia), she’d been in boarding school in Baltimore when the Southern states began to secede. She made he way back home, and when the war began, she promptly decided to do whatever she could to help the South win. 

She became a spy.

 

Her hometown afforded more than ample opportunity; like doe so many other towns in contested areas, control of the town changed hands several times. She made no secret of her sympathies; she did make secret her listening in on Union plans and army movements. In one particularly amazing incident, she braved gun and cannon fire in rushing across a large field to bring news of Union army reserves to Gen. Stonewall Jackson.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

“The Little Church Around the Corner,” the Civil War, and the Draft Riots – Patrick Young at The Reconstruction Era.

 

“Brother Cally, They Have Killed Me”: Morgan’s Raiders in Lebanon, Kentucky – Carline Davis at Emerging Civil War.

The Cultivating Project: Staking

The theme for the summer edition of The Cultivating Project is staking. There are different kinds of staking – as in staking a plant with a pole, registering a claim to land or property, marking boundary lines, or tethering to make stable or secure. As editor Lancia Smith writes, “To stake is something to do. There is a visible quality to staking, even in relationships, mental boundaries, or risking an act of faith … Staking is an essential practice in becoming whole and reflects something elemental in God’s intentions for us.”

 

Here are the posted articles addressing the theme:

• “Staking Our Claim” by Maribeth Barber Albritton (introduction)
• “A Right to Grief” by Gianna Soderstrom
• “Staking Tomatoes” by Jordan Durbin
• “Perfectly Purchased, For Love has Claimed Me” by Rob Jones
• “My Hope is Built on Nothing Less” by Mary Campbell Miller
• “Standing Ground” by Adam R. Nettesheim
• “Shame Like Velcro” by Christina Brown
• “Spikes” by Glynn Young
• “Reclamation ~ What Would Gunder Say?” by Annie Nardone

Photograph by Krzystof Walczak via Unsplash. Used with permission.

"Hamnet": Visualizing What Inspired Shakespeare's "Hamlet"

William Shakespeare and his wife Anne Hathaway had three children – Susannah and the twins Judith and Hamnet. In 1596, when the twins were 11, Hamnet died. A week after his son was buried in their hometown of Stratford, Shakespeare was back in London, working on a new play.  

It seems odd to us today that the man would have hurried back so quickly to London after the funeral of his child. I suspect it might have seemed odd even in 1596. Your wife is grieving, your daughters are grieving, your still-living parents are grieving, and you rush back to work. We don’t know what might have been going on in Shakespeare’s mind, as he left no written record of his thoughts about his son’s death.

 

Or did he?

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

The Murder Case in Arden of Faversham, the Greatest Shakespearean-Era Play You’ve Never Heard Of – Amnon Kabatchnik at CrimeReads. 

 

Wings – artwork by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

"Beneath the Silent Heavens" by Brian Christopher Moore

I occasionally read fantasy stories, but it’s not my favorite genre. But I would gladly read more stories like Beneath the Silent Heavens.  

Noe is a boy who considers the animals his friends. When an evil presence arises in the woods, it is Noe who figures out a way to combat it and destroy it. Even as a boy, he becomes something of a legend among the animals. 

 

The years pass. A young female tiger living in a distant land feels the call to find Noe. Her parents know the legend, but gently try to dissuade her from pursuing the notion of finding him. But the call proves too strong, and the tiger begins her quest. Other animals have heard of Noe, and a few describe how she’s to find him. But not everyone welcomes her with open arms; she is a tiger, and they all know what tigers like to eat – animals like themselves.

 

Noe had grown up and grown old. He and his family, which were still among the very wealthiest in the region, are now the objects of increasing ridicule and, occasionally, violence. For Noe had heard a voice, and he heeded what the voice told him to do – but a great boat on the side of a mountain. A bad time is coming. 

 

Noe lives in a society that’s wealthy and decadent. The old ways, and the old virtues, are increasingly ignored. Noe becomes an object of persecution because he rather stubbornly clings to the old virtues – a reminder to others of the evil they do.

 

The tiger meets Noe, and he sends her on a mission, helped by an ox and a deer. And the mission is to tell the animals that the bad time is coming. They’re largely ignored and even attacked. But they do what they were told to do – and that was to speak of finding the refuge.

 

Beneath the Silent Heavens by Brian Christopher Moore is the story of Noe, his family, and the tiger. It’s more than a fantasy story for children; I suspect it’s aimed squarely at adults rather than a younger audience. And it’s more than a retelling of the story of Noah and the ark; it is a rich re-imagining of the story, and it suggests that the times of Noe (or Noah) were not unlike our own times.

 

Moore received s Ph.D. in literature degree from the University of Dallas. He is a member of the blogging team at Eclectic Orthodoxy, a site focused on the Gospel, the church fathers, and orthodox faith. (And if you can find any more information about him, please share it.)

 

Beneath the Silent Heavens is a Gospel story, a prodigious feat of imagination, and, perhaps most of all, a story of hope and refuge in dark times.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Culture Wars 2023 – As it turns out, traditional Muslims have children, too – Terry Mattingly at Get Religion.

 

Amazon’s ebook charts are full of AI-generated spam – Gavia Baker-Whitelaw at Daily Dot.

 

When Ideology Corrupts Medicine – and How One Reporter Exposed It – Bari Weiss at The Free Press. 

July 17, 1775: The Start of the Beeline March – Kevin Pawlak at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

She stops laughing

After Hebrews 11:1-3, 11-12 

She laughed at how

ridiculous it was,

to become pregnant

at her age. She

laughed, and kept

laughing, until she

knew, she sensed

the changes, the first

flutters and movements

of the child growing

within her. And then,

only then, did the words

of the promise strike her

senseless. From her

would be born a child,

and more than that,

a multitude, one flowing

from that child, her child, 

a multitude as numerous

as the stars, as plentiful

as the grains of sand

on the shore. And she

stops laughing.

 

Photograph by Aiony Haust via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne: A Reader’s Guide to a Christian Classic – Jordan Stone at Desiring God.

 

Stand – poem by Mark Lukey at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Is Sound of Freedom the Next Uncle Tom’s Cabin? – Cap Stewart at The Gospel Coalition.

 

Forget about Hollywood for a moment: Where is the biblical Mount Sinai located? – Richard Ostling at Get Religion.

Saturday Good Reads - July 15, 2023

Life and Culture 

“It’s a shame about Christopher Wray.” Kimberley Strassel at The Wall Steet Journal explains why the director of the FBI doesn’t get the problem faced by the agency. It isn’t the 38,000 agents working diligently every day to protect the country; it’s a handful of people at the very top of the FBI pyramid in Washington that have politicized the agency. (Article unlocked.)

 

Technology has become our god, says writer Paul Kingsnorth, and it is turning us into one vast machine. And AI won’t save the world, he says. In a guest post at The Free Press, Kingsnorth sees the internet and its associated social media as a disaster for mankind. “This is an extreme statement, but I’m in an extreme mood.”

 

Americans need moving vans? AP says it’s politics, politics, politics, politics, etc. – Terry Mattingly at Get Religion.

 

Faith

 

Can We Trust Luke’s History of the Early Jesus Movement? – Shane Rosenthal at The Humble Skeptic.

 

My three grandsons attend a classical Christian education school, and the difference from both public and other private schools is enormous (did you start to learn Latin in third grade?). It’s a small but growing development in education. Paul Krause at Front Porch Republic explains why the classics should be important to Christians.

 

After the initial burst, the news media walked away from coverage of the Covenant School shooting in Nashville; one reason is that the shooter, Audrey Hale, didn’t fit the prevailing narrative. Something else you won’t read: guess who paid for Hale’s funeral? Bethel McGrew at Further Up has the story.

 

Light into darkness: The Sound of Freedom movie – Jesse Johnson at The Cripplegate. Christianity Today, as it likes to do, has a different take on the movie, implying it’s exaggerated without explicitly saying that.

 

British Stuff

 

So Long, Libby Hall and Libby Hall’s London Dogs – at Spitalfields Life. Libby Hall collected old photographs of dogs – dogs by themselves, dogs with their owners, dogs with families. Both links at Spitalfields Life show some of these old photographs. But perhaps most extraordinarily of all, Libby Hall gave the blog writer (who goes by the name of The Gentle Author) a present – an inkwell that was likely owned by Charles Dickens. 

 

Writing and Literature

 

Robert Southwell was executed for treason in London in 1595. The charges against him included the fact that he was a Catholic priest (a Jesuit) and he had ties to the pope. But he was also a fine poet, and it’s likely that he knew William Shakespeare. Joseph Parce at The Imaginative Conservative looks for Southwell’s influence on the bard, and especially the play Romeo and Juliet.

 

Do readers really want shorter novels? – Nathan Bransford.

 

How Truman Capote Was Destroyed by His Own Masterpiece – Ebs Burnough at Literary Hub.

 

How Literature Lasts (and Popular Myths of Popularity) – Lincoln Michel at Counter Craft.

 

Poetry

 

Ways of Seeing – Merril D. Smith at Yesterday and today.

 

Slowly – Seth Lewis.

 

Art

 

Sometimes – Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

American Stuff

 

I’d always heard that Abner Doubleday was the father of American baseball. Apparently, that was just a rumor. What wasn’t a rumor, however, was the role Doubleday stepped up to at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, and he may well have saved the battle, writes Stephen Ruiz at Military.com. 

 

Walt Whitman Birthplace Huntington – Patrick Young at The Reconstruction Era.

 

A form of popular entertainment in the 19^th century was the panorama, an often-very long and very large mural that unfolded like a scroll and depicted a variety of scenes. We were able to see one undergoing restoration at the St. Louis Art Museum. Hattie Felton at the Missouri Historical Society explains how the Mississippi River came to be one of the subjects of a panorama. 

 

Twelve Days: How the Union Nearly Lot Washington in the First Days of the Civil War by Tony Silber – Book review by Doug Crenshaw at Emerging Civil War.

 

“Let’s All Sit Down Now and Have a Hearty Cry”: Mark Wilcox at Emerging Revolutionary War Era tells the story of the kidnapping of Jemima Boone and two friends in 1776, and the rescue by the men led by Daniel Boone. The story inspired James Fenimore Cooper when he wrote The Last of the Mohicans.

 

The Lord’s Prayer (It’s Yours) – Matt Maher

Painting: Man Reading, oil on canvas (1940s) by Martin Snipper (1914-2008).