"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.

"A Twist of Faith" by Pepper Basham

Adelina Roseland, Ph.D., works at the University of Virginia – Charlottesville. She works in speech and accent modification. She’s been assigned for a year to Blue Ridge University in Ransom, in Virginia’s Appalachia country. She’ll be working on a joint project managed by both schools, as well as another project.

A colleague has also challenged her to help transform a local Ransom man for an interview in Chicago in 12 weeks. And it’s a bet – if she wins, she gets to make a big conference presentation, which will help her immeasurably in getting a tenured position at the University of Virginia.

Adelina brings considerable psychological and spiritual baggage with her. Her father died in an automobile accident when she was 14; her mother had already been an alcoholic before his death. She’s still mad at her father for dying, and she’s remained angry and distant from her mother. She’s also carrying significant prejudice about the colleagues she’ll be working with and her expected clients, including the man, Reese Mitchell, who has the Chicago interview.

Pepper Basham

Initially, her impressions conform to her prejudices. Reese Mitchell may be tall and lean but his bushy beard and his accent, not to mention his grammar, seem like something out of Deliverance. Only slowly does she look beyond her prejudices and her ambitions, to learn about Reese the man, his extended family, his charm, his faith, and his depth.

And, yes, A Twist of Faith by Pepper Basham is an American Southern Christian take on Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. Emphasizing the connection are quotations from Pygmalion at the beginning of each chapter.

Basham is the author of numerous historical and contemporary romance novels, novellas, and stories. A Twist of Faith is the first in her Mitchell Crossroads series; the second is Charming the Troublemaker. She and her family live in Asheville, North Carolina.

It’s a sweet, engaging story, and it fits well with our current national conversation about coastal America and flyover country and the prejudices of the educated classes.  

Poets and Poems: Ilya Kaminsky and “Deaf Republic”

Deaf Republic, the new collection of poetry by Ilya Kaminsky, is striking on at least two counts, and possibly a third.

First, it is a story, a narrative “in two acts,” that uses the poetic form. The 59 poems are a collective whole, tightly connected to the point where it’s difficult to imagine any of them apart from their fellow poems. The poems work like a narrative thread, weaving together people and events into a coherent whole. The narrative’s two acts read almost like a play, and to emphasize that connection the work includes a

The second striking feature is what the story is about – a time of trouble in an occupied country, set in the town of Vasenka. The occupation might be from the political left or the political right; the orientation is not important. The occupying soldiers are present; the people are feeling a kind of suffocation. Freedom and citizens’ rights are no longer functioning words and ideas. A command is given; all the people obey, except for a child, a boy who is deaf.

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

"Beyond the Point" by Damien Boyd

Detective Inspector Nick Dixon of the Avon and Somerset Police has a bad habit. His intuition, his guesses, his sense of how investigations are going and should go inevitably turn out to be right.

This isn’t a characteristic that endears you to colleagues and superiors, who may be more concerned about police politics and career advancement.

Now Dixon is tracking, or trying to track, a serial killer, who’s left a few bodies in his wake and is intent on taunting the police detective. The investigation leads into a wholly different kind of case, one seemingly bungled by Dixon’s old police foe, and then into a case of bribery and corruption in the construction business. And Dixon keeps sensing and guessing correctly.

Damien Boyd

Beyond the Point by British writer Damien Boyd is the ninth Dick Nixon mystery, and it may well be the best one yet – which is saying a lot, because there hasn’t been a miss in the entire series. Boyd uses his own experience as a legal solicitor and a member of the Crown Prosecution Service to frame his stories, and then infuses considerable research in just the right way. In this story, for example, the reader will learn a lot about big construction projects, like bridges and nuclear power plants, but will never feel like this is a data dump to impress with how much the author knows.

What Boyd has done in these mysteries is no small feat. He’s mixed intriguing premises, a diabetic hero who often has to stifle himself when he’s dealing with superiors, the ongoing romance between Dixon and policewoman Jane Winter, and the fascination of solid police work punctuated by Dixon’s tendency to try the unexpected and the unorthodox. It’s no surprise that the detective often finds himself in trouble at police headquarters.

Beyond the Point is an exciting, well-researched, and well-written mystery.

Related:

My review of Damien Boyd’s As the Crow Flies.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Head in the Sand.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Kickback.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Swansong.

My review of Damien Boyd's Dead Level.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Death Sentence.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Heads or Tails.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Dead Lock.

Gates besieged

After Micah 5:1-5

The troops besiege

the gates, the city

trembles, seeking

deliverance as

the soldiers scream

and shout and shake

the gates.

A cry goes up:

Who will deliver us

who will save us

from the locust army

surrounding us, ready

to devour us

A voice:

From the small

from the tiny

comes salvation

and the source is

Bethlehem

Photograph by Hakon Sataoen via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Saturday Good Reads

The first time I tried to visit the Charles Dickens House Museum in London was in 2012. It was the 200^thanniversary of his birth. Through an inexplicable act of bad timing, the museum was closed for renovation. But I did go back, four times, in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2017. If I return to London, I’ll visit it once again. Yes, I’m a Charles Dickens fan.

Not so fast, David Heddendorf at Front Porch Republic might say. He makes an argument for the fiction of Anthony Trollope over Dickens, and even this Dickens fan thinks he has some good points to make. You can read about it in Puppets and Portraits: Two Victorians.

Josh Hawley, a U.S. Senator from my state of Missouri, barely had time to catch his breath as the state’s new attorney general before he was catapulted into the U.S. Senate. A Republican, he’s struck something of an independent path, criticizing the tech giants before it became fashionable in Washington and opposing a Trump-nominated candidate for a judiciary position. He also surprised a lot of people with his maiden speech in the Senate – calling for a revitalization of the “great American Middle” (guaranteed to offend both parties but especially Republicans).

Imagine my surprise to discover a column this past week in Christianity Today on The Age of Pelagius – on how an ancient heresy continues to plague contemporary culture. And it was written by U.S. Senator Josh Hawley. 

Exactly 130 years ago, Vincent Van Gogh was in an insane asylum, and in the space of one week painted five pictures, including two of his most famous works, Starry Night and Olive Trees with Les Apilles. Martin Bailey at The Art Newspaper tells the story of that week.

More Good Reads

Life and Culture

Alone: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness – Kay S. Hymowitx at City Journal. 

Competence of Character – Matthew Hosier at Think Theology.

What Really Happened to Malaysia’s Missing Airplane – William Langewiesche at The Atlantic.

Touch – Stewart McAlpine.

Writing and Literature

Preserving the pleasures of the bookshop – Alexander McCall Smith at The Scotsman.

Sherlock Holmes, Hardboiled Detective – Alexis Hall at CrimeReads.

Noir Tropes Are Alive and Well – and Powerful as Ever – Kelsey Rae Dimberg at CrimeReads.

Poetry

On the banks of a quiet creek (poetry as prompt) – Kelly Belmonte (and others) at All Nine.

Sugar on Snow – David Yezzi at The Atlantic.

American Stuff

Seeds of Home: The Story of the Real Miss Rumphius – Elizabeth Harwell at Kingdom Come.

“My Responsibility For These Men”: A Leadership Letter from Petersburg – Sarah Kay Bierle at Emerging Civil War.

Faith

Foot Washing Words – Eileen Knowles at The Scenic Route.

Art and Architecture

Patrick Dougher – Maureen Doallas at Escape Into Life.

This 16th-Century Italian Church Is Built into the Side of a Cliff – Jessica Stewart at My Modern Met (and see the video below).

Santuario Madonna della Corona

Painting: Woman Reading the Newspaper, oil on canvas by Carl Vilhelm Holsoe (1863-1935).

The promise

After Genesis 3:1-19

To be promised a bruise,

a bruise on another’s heel,

is odd, I know, and unusual,

I know, for somehow a bruise

on another’s heel becomes

the sign of the way out,

our way out,

the light at the end of the tunnel,

our light at the end,

and it’s where the bruise happens,

on that heel.

Photograph by Fabrizio Verrecchia via Unsplash. Used with permission.