Curse

After Galatians 3:7-14 

The curse dragged me

across a barren land,

a landscape like desert,

alone, cast out,

abandoned. To walk,

or perhaps crawl,

that landscape is

to hunger, to thirst,

to ache, to hurt,

to despair, to die.

It’s a journey we

cannot make ourselves;

only our substitute 

can take that walk,

can make that journey,

taking our place.

 

Photograph by Daniel Jensen via Unsplash. Used with permission.

"Murder in the House" by Roy Lewis

Arnold Landon is an unassuming county planning officer in Morpeth in northern England. He’s a bachelor, and his abiding passion in the study of medieval architecture, masonry, and the masons who constructed the old estates, castles, abbeys, farm homes, and even barns. His manager, the Senior Planning Officer, is a political type, hates confrontations, and pushes off work on this people, including Arnold, at every opportunity. 

Arnold also seems attracts trouble at every opportunity. Including coming up with a number of innovative solutions to murder and other crimes.

 

His rare bookseller friend Ben asks him to meet with a publisher, who’s looking for someone to complete a manuscript by an author who committed suicide or was killed. The subject – medieval masonry – is right up Arnold’s alley. And he has enough spare time to fit the work in.

 

Roy Lewis

But this isn’t a simple publishing effort. The publisher is threatened, by a member of the Morpeth planning council, who also threatens Arnold with the loss of his job. And soon enough, Arnold finds himself defending charges of padding his expense reports. He’s put on leave with pay, which means he also has time to pursue what increasingly looks like criminal activity. And he’s helped by the bookseller’s niece, who’s filling in for her uncle while he recovers from a heart attack.

 

Murder in the House is the sixth Arnold Landon mystery by British author Roy Lewis, and it’s the best yet, which is saying a lot since the first five were excellent. Lewis weaves a fine tale and an engaging mystery. And Arnold Landon may be my favorite if his detectives yet.

 

Lewis is the author of some 60 other mysteries, novels, and short story collections. His Inspector Crow series includes A Lover Too Many, Murder in the Mine, The Woods Murder, Error of Judgment, and Murder for Money, among others. The Eric Ward series, of which The Sedleigh Hall Murder is the first (and originally published as A Certain Blindness in 1981), includes 17 novels. Lewis lives in northern England. 

 

Related:

 

Murder in the Church by Roy Lewis.

 

Murder in the Barn by Roy Lewis.

 

Murder in the Manor by Roy Lewis.

 

Murder in the Farmhouse by Roy Lewis.

 

Murder in the Stableyard by Roy Lewis.

 

Error in Judgment by Roy Lewis.

"Bear in the Wilderness" by Donald Waldemer

One of the many features of the Missouri Civil War Museum is the gift shop, which has artifacts, souvenirs, refreshments, t-shirts and jackets, and books. Lots of books. Lots of new and used books all about the Civil War. (I wrote about the museum here.) 

I found more than a few things of interest, but I didn’t overdo it. I walked away with an old copy of Stephen Vincent Benet’s epic book-length poem John Brown’s Body, the novel Shiloh by Shelby Foote, and a few others. One, as it turned out, had a strong St. Louis connection.

 

Donald Waldemer (1925-2021) was about totally St Louis as you can get. He was born here. He received two degrees from Washington University in St. Louis. He worked for Union Electric (now Ameren, the main electric utility) for 34 years.  He and his wife raised a family in Brentwood, a close-in St. Louis suburb, and he’s buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Kirkwood, the suburb where I live. 

 

Waldermer was also an avid student of the Civil War. He published Triumph at the James: The Checkmate of Gen. Robert E. Lee in 1998 and Bear in the Wilderness: The Battle of the Wilderness May 5,6,7 1864 in 2001. It was the book on the Battle of the Wilderness that I found at the Missouri Civil War Museum.

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

Art and Poetry Come Together in Fredericksburg, Texas

It’s one of the many places settled by German immigrants in pre-Civil War America. Fredericksburg, Texas, is some 75 miles west of Austin in the Texas hill country. And, yes, everything they say and sing about bluebonnets in the spring is true. Years ago, when I lived in Houston, I drove my wife to Austin for a series of medical procedures. And the bluebonnets dazzled. 

A number of other things dazzle in Fredericksburg. The birthplace of Chester Nimitz, the admiral who commanded the U.S. Navy in the Pacific in World War II (the town has an impressive museum devoted to the War in the Pacific). The nearby Lyndon Baines Johnson Ranch, a historical park operated by the National Park Service. The Pioneer Memorial Library and Pioneer Museum. The Texas Rangers Heritage Center at Fort Martin Scott. Don’t forget the beer and food at Oktoberfest. And close by is Luckenbach, Texas, made famous in songs by Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Kristofferson. 

 

Fredericksburg has another boast. Actually two: art, and poetry. And they’ve come together in a poetry and art exhibition at the Fredericksburg Art Guild through the month of April. Featured are artist Nan Henke and poet Megan Willome.

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

Photograph: the eastern end of downtown Federicksburg by Chris Litherland via Wikimedia.

"What the Vicar Saw" by Benedict Brown

Retired Scotland Yard detective Lord Edgington and his nephew Christopher Prentiss are in the small town of Condicote. The family is visiting Christopher’s paternal grandmother, who is something of a dragon on a good day. It’s a few days after Christmas of 1926, everyone’s in a good mood despite the dragon grandmother, and the talk is of the recent accidental death of the local peer, Baron Fane, in a car accident.  

The family attends a church service together, only to discover that the vicar has been murdered. The town constable seeks the path of least resistance, and he arrests a young man who has in his possession a chalice stolen from the church. Two months later, the trial is held, the young man found guilty, and the judge issues a sentence of death by hanging.

 

Christopher is convinced the young man is innocent, but his grandfather refuses to investigate. Two of the young man’s friends do investigate, and one of them dies if a gunshot wound to the temple. The constable sees suicide, but the victim’s mother and Christopher see murder. Lord Edgington is eventually prevailed upon to look into the case.

 

Benedict Brown

And what follows is a trail of land development shenanigans, another death, anyone and no one being the prime suspect (including the dragon grandmother), and Christopher beginning to step outside his grandfather’s enormous detective shadow. 

 

What the Vicar Saw is the ninth Lord Edgington mystery by Benedict Brown. It has all the distinctive characteristics pf the novels in the series – Christopher’s appetite and sarcasm, plenty of 1920s atmosphere and details, and humor amid the tragic circumstances. It’s also about 60 pages longer than its predecessors, and there are reasons for that. This story seems something of a transition for Christopher, who is less dependent upon his grandfather for observations and insights. (There’s also a fair amount of handwringing over all the clues going nowhere and lack of any obvious suspect.) But the story is still a treat and a fun read.

 

In addition to the Lord Edgington stories, Brown has written seven Izzy Palmer mystery novels and three novellas. A native of south London, he lives with his family in Spain. The Lord Edgington mysteries are likely aimed at both the general reader as well as the young adult audience. And they’re well-researched stories, full of information about the mid-1920s.

 

Related:

 

Murder at the Spring Ball by Benedict Brown.

 

A Body at a Boarding School by Benedict Brown.

 

The Mystery of Mistletoe Hall by Benedict Brown.

 

 Death on a Summer’s Day by Benedict Brown.

 

The Tangled Treasure Trail by Benedict Brown.

 

The Curious Case of the Templeton-Swifts by Benedict Brown.

 

The Crimes of Clearwell Castle by Benedict Brown.

 

The Snows of Weston Moor by Benedict Brown.

Live by works, or...

After Galatians 3:7-14 

Live by works, or

live by faith – that’s

the choice we make.

And it’s clear:

live by works, and die,

because works are

never enough, insufficient

to compensate, bridge 

the gap, close the chasm.

It takes more to lift

the curse, this curse

we live under. Only

by One becoming

the curse could it be

lifted. And all we’re

asked is to have faith,

and believe. Choose

faith.

 

Photograph by Jessica Delp via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Saturday Good Reads - April 15, 2023

A couple of millennia or so ago, it wasn’t uncommon for scribes to erase costly parchment and write something new. Like what happened when a scribe took a Syriac text, erased it, and wrote something different. A scholar in Austria has been able to see what the erased text actually was – a 3rd century copy of one of the Gospels.  

It’s been somewhat trendy in academic circles to see the development of Christianity as having had a major break in the 4^th and 5^th centuries, with the idea being that early Christianity was left behind and its validity didn’t carry forward. (German theologians did something like this back in the 19^th century, thinking they were deconstructing the Bible.) Michael Kruger, president and professor at Reformed Theological Seminary, takes a look at the new claims.

 

When faced with danger, we often resort to both fear and – jokes. When things look bleak, why not laugh at them? Johannes Lichtman at Literary Hub discusses how the Ukrainians are helping themselves deal with Putin’s troops – by joking about it.

 

NPR (and, a little later, PBS) quite Twitter this week, upset that Elon Musk had referred to them as “state media.” (BBC was described the same way, and while it was upset, too, it didn’t leave Twitter.) N.S. Lyons at The Upheaval says that wasn’t exactly true; they’re not state media. They’re “state-party” media. 

 

More Good Reads

 

Faith

 

The Garden at the End of the Universe – Bethel McGrew at Further Up.

 

Exemplary Speech: Hos Good Pastors Wield Exemplary Words – Ray Ortlund at Desiring God.

 

The Week after Easter: When Sin and the Resurrection Collide – Mark Brunansky at The Cripplegate.

 

How Will Christianity Survive during Dark Times? – Michael Brown at Tabletalk.

 

There’s a reason every hit worship song sounds the same – Bob Smietana at Religion News Service.

 

Poetry

 

Resurrection – F.R. Scott at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).

 

British Stuff

 

The City That Fell Off a Cliff – Matthew Green at The Public Domain Review.

 

American Stuff

 

Plundering, Death, and Culpeper National Cemetery: A Twisted Military & Civilian Interaction – Sarah Kay Bierle at Emerging Civil War.

 

Life and Culture

 

The Problem of Our Gleeful Historical Ignorance – Ray Van Neste at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Rules for Passivists: Ten things to do when you are steamrolled by the inexorable force of history – Jeff Reimer at Comment Magazine.

 

The Case Against ‘Medical Assistance in Dying’ – Brian Bird at Quillette.

 

The Universal: Four Questions Concerning The Internet, part one – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule. 

 

Writing and Literature

 

When Literary Legends Meet – Rick Mofina at CrimeReads.

 

Birthday with the Bard – A.C.S. Bird at Story Warren.

 

Down in Yon Forest – Jeff Johnson

 

Painting: Lubeck orphanage, oil on canvas (1894) by Gotthardt Kuehl (1850-1915).