"Murder by Candlelight" by Faith Martin

I’m a fam of the Faith Martin mysteries. I really liked the Ryder and Loveday mysteries (and keeping hoping for another), and I’ve been reading the DI Hillary Greene mysteries, with six or seven to go before I reach the end. 

Murder by Candlelight is the first in a planned new series, and it’s different from the other series in at least three ways. It’s not a police procedural, and is considerably closer to the cozy mysteries of Agatha Christie. Second, it’s not set in Oxford or the Oxford area; instead, it’s the fictional town of Maybury-in-the-Marsh in the Cotswolds, a small town not unlike Miss Marple’s St. Mary Mead. And third, it’s not a contemporary story but a historical mystery, set in 1924. 

 

I’m still trying to make up my mind about it.

 

Arbuthnot Lancelot Swift, mercifully known as Arbie, has published an unexpected bestseller, The Gentlemen’s Guide to Ghost-Hunting. It was done as something of a lark with his friend in publishing, and it was so successful that the publisher wants a second book. Arbie lives with his eccentric uncle, who reared him after the death of his parents. Martin should do more with this character of Uncle; he’s an absolute stitch in the story. 

 

Faith Martin

Mrs. Phelps, one of the town’s best-known (and wealthiest) matrons, asks Arbie to investigate what seems to be a series of hauntings at her large home, Old Forge. He’s reluctant, as reluctant as he was to write a book in the first place and as reluctant as he is to do a sequel. But a school years friend, one of the vicar’s daughters named Valentina Olivia Charlotte Coulton-James, is keen to join him and rather bullies him into determining whether (she bullied him when they were school chums as well). 

 

A few days later, Mrs. Phelps dies in her locked bedroom. What looks like a natural death is found to be cyanide poisoning. As the police investigate, Arbie and Val decide they owe to Mrs. Phelps to investigate as well. And it will be Arbie who eventually solves the crime.

 

The story has all the elements of a fun book and the start of an entertaining series – creative characters, a good story line, a locked room puzzle, and vivid minor characters (like that uncle). But I struggled with it, and I’m not sure why. But this is a Faith Martin story, and for now I’ll give the benefit of the doubt and describe my reaction as my own problem. And I’m looking forward to the next installment with Arbie, Val, and Arbie’s wonderful uncle.

 

In addition to the DI Hillary Greene novels, Martin (a pen name for Jacquie Walton) has also published the Ryder and Loveday novels as well as the Jenny Sterling mysteries. Under the name Joyce Cato, she has published several non-series detective stories. Both Cato and Martin are also pen names for Walton. (Walton has another pen name as well – Maxine Barry, under which she wrote 14 romance novels.) A native of Oxford, she lives in a village in Oxfordshire.

 

Related:

 

Murder on the Oxford Canal by Faith Martin.

 

Murder at the University by Faith Martin. 

 

Murder of the Bride by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in the Village by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in the Family by Faith Martin.

 

Murder at Home by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in the Meadow by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in the Mansion by Faith Martin.

 

Murder by Fire by Faith Martin.

 

Murder at Work by Faith Martin.

 

Murder Never Retires by Faith Martin.

 

Murder of a Lover by Faith Martin.

 

Murder Never Misses by Faith Martin.

Some Thursday Readings

 

Footsteps – artwork by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Poems to Listen By: Earth Song – 3: Elm in Dirt with Bird – Laurie Klein at Tweetspeak Poetry (for Patreon Subscribers).

 

Another Chance – poem by Seth Lewis.

 

Today I Have No Wisdom – poem by David Whyte.

“The Gettysburg Reunion of 1913” by John Hopkins

In July 1913, some 53,000 Civil War veterans gathered in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the famous battle. Almost every veteran was, by this time, an old man, with most in the 70s. The youngest was 61; he’d been an 11-year-old drummer boy in 1863. The oldest was 110; he’d fought when he was 60. 

The anniversary event didn’t happen by itself; planning had gone on for years, at least in theory. The commemoration almost didn’t happen because of what was falling through the cracks as the date got closer. But competent people intervened, and the commemoration happened.

 

In The World Will Never See the Like: The Gettysburg Reunion of 1913, author John Hopkins tells the story in all of its chaos, splendor, and glory. Veterans, mostly Union because those states provided at least some transportation costs, came from all over the country to find old friends and sometimes old enemies, remember, and celebrate a unified country. 

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

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Sweet Talk Walk – Becky Ramsey.

 

Civil War Books and Authors Names “Book of the Year.”

 

How to balance writing for the market and writing for yourself – Nathan Bransford.

Poets and Poems: Moira Linehan and "Toward"

Moira Linehan Ounijan (1945-2023) published four collections of poetry during her lifetime: If No Moon (2007), Incarnate Grace (2015), Toward (2020), and & Company (2020). She’d been a high school English teacher and late an administrator in both technology and academia, but it was her love for poetry, and her work as a poet, that stirred her heart.  

Reading Linehan’s poems in Toward, it’s easy to see her heart stir. It’s a simple heart, and a wise heart. She sees what too often becomes apparent in old age – the beauty of the earth, the importance of the small things, and the details we tend to overlook or miss in the pell-mell rush of youth and middle age. She is a poet who’s comfortable in her skin; what she observes is not about self but about landscape, others, and time.

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Christian Wiman: The poet on the need for awe – Maggie Millner at The Yale Review.

 

The Silent Traveler The art of Chiang Yee – Spitalfields Life.

 

En Route to Canaan/Jericho – poem by Katy Bowser Hutson at Rabbit Room Poetry.

Some Monday Readings

MLK’s Former Speechwriter: ‘We Are Trying to Save the Soul of America’ – Francesca Block at The Free Press.  

The real reason people are flocking to red states – Lewis Andrews at The Spectator.

 

It’s in the Blood – short story by Victoria Leigh Bennett at The Wombwell Rainbow.

 

Breathing – poem and artwork by Sonja Benskin Miller.

 

Nathanael’s Epiphany – poem by Malcom Guite.

 

Our Father’s House: Sr. Mariella Gable introduces a collection of Catholic fiction – The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Book Review: The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism by Tim Alberta – Zak Schmoll.

 

Declaration on an Independent – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review on Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography.

Painting: Benjamin Franklin.

Lament for a persecutor

After 2 Samuel 1:17-27 

The wind breathes,

and the flower’s petals

fall and turn brown,

withering into dust.

The mighty one

the king who persecuted

and sought the death

of the anointed one,

the king lies fallen

on the field,

the battle over,

his final battle fought.

The king lies fallen,

dead, uncelebrated,

and so the anointed one

sounds his lament,

his song of sadness

and grief for the fallen

shield, the king lying

dead. He celebrates

his life, he mourns

his death, paying him

the honor he was due.

 

Photograph by Margaret Polinder via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Homebound – poem by Jeffrey Essmann at Society of Classical Poets.

 

A Song of Joy in a Moment of Sadness: A Friend of C.S. Lewis Goes Home – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Change – poem by Jody Collins at Poetry & Made Things. 

 

Our godless era is dead – Paul Kingsnorth at UnHerd. 

Saturday Good Reads - Jan. 13, 2024

Fifty years ago, I was reading the fiction of John Gardner. My first encounter was Nickel Mountain, followed by what I think is still his best book, October Light. He was known for a work called The Sunlight Dialogues. His last novel was Mickelsson’s Ghosts, which I liked but it had a bit of a contrived ending. Gardner was not popular with the literary theory set in the 1980s, enchanted as they were with deconstruction and related ideas. He died in 1982 in a motorcycle accident in New York; he’d been teaching at Stoney Brook. It turns out I wasn’t the only one who liked his fiction; Bill Kauffman at The Spectator has a remembrance.  

Dwight Lindley is an English professor at Hillsdale College; I recently completed his (free) online course on A Christmas Carol. He has a wonderful article at Notre Dame’s Church Life Journal, connecting an author with a completely unexpected subject: Homer and the Poetry of Forgiveness.

Aaron Renn is one of the most independent thinkers, and independent Christian thinkers, you can find today. He read a book to review it for the conservative Claremont Institute, and he discovered it included an in-depth behind-the-scenes (and somewhat sympathetic) discussion of the “evangelical resistance movement” opposed to Donald Trump. This group has been at it long before Trump became a serious candidate way back in early 2015. It turns out that Anti-Trump evangelicals may be small in number, but they are very well organized and well-funded, including some non-Christian money. Read Renn’s “The Resistance Will Be Organized.”

 

More Good Reads

 

Writing and Literature

 

The Killer Angels Revisited – Part 1 and Part II – Evan Portman at Emerging Civil War.

 

Exploring the Isolation of the British Countryside – Stig Abell at Crime Reads.

 

‘A Desire to Constantly Learn’: A conversation with Tsh Oxenreider – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Who is Reading What and Why – Lincoln Michel at Counter Craft.

 

Poetry

 

Poetry for Children: Seven Great Poems to Read to Your Kids – Shaun Duncan at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Faith

 

These Fragile Remembrances – Kathryn Butler at Story Warren. 

 

Let Us Become Like Little Children – Vanessa Le at Gentle Reformation.

 

Foreign Territory: A year of loss and finding the way – Mindy Belz at Globe Trot.

 

Life and Culture

 

Christopher Lasch on the Elites’ Betrayal of Democracy – Chuck Chalberg at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

Why I Quit My Dream Job at MIT – Mauricio Karchmer at The Free Press.

 

Why the left poses a greater threat to civic disorder – Lionel Shriver at The Spectator. 

 

Orf vs. the Memory Hole: Anthony Fauci’s Pandemic Follies – Matt Taibbi at Racket News.

 

Who wants to be the next British Museum director? Post advertised with a salary of £216,000 – Gareth Harris at The Art Newspaper.

 

The deafening, disgusting silence of women’s groups on Hamas rapes continues – Mark Penn and Andrew Stein at New York Post.

 

The Windmills of Your Mind – sung by Noel Harrison for “The Thomas Crown Affair”

Painting: Man reading by lamp in interior, oil on canvas by Victor Lecomte (1856-1920).

Atonement

After I Samuel 25:19-35 

Insulted by the man,

the man who was a fool,

the anger burned 

and heaved within 

him. The man’s wife

knew the consequences,

knew the family and

all they knew faced

destruction. She

gathered bread and

sheep and wine and

took it all to the man

insulted. He watched

her approach, anger

still burning, until

she threw herself

at his feet and begged

forgiveness. She

transformed insult

into blessing, and

his anger died,

flooded by her wisdom,

her meekness, her

words of contrition.

 

Photograph by Dingzelu Li via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

Hope – poem by Ruben Dario at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).

 

“The Old Native Chieftain” and “When I First Saw My Baby Boy” – poems by Corey Elizabeth Jackson at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Word of the Year – Megan Willome at Poetry for Life.

 

The Darkened Hill – poem by Adam Wasem at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Five Fears of Old Age – John Piper at Desiring God.