Christopher Prentiss’s older brother Albert is getting married to his great love Cassandra Fairfax. It’s the uniting of two great families, the Cranleys, led by Christopher and Albert’s grandfather Lord Edgington, and the Fairfaxes, headed by the duke and duchess of Hinwick. An old Fairfax tradition is that, the night before the marriage, the groom and his party stay with the bride’s family, while the bride and her party stay with the groom’s family.
Albert, Christopher and Lord Edgington, with a considerable portion of Lord Edington’s staff in tow (he never leaves home without them) travel to the Fairfax estate. In addition to her parents, the bride has three unmarried brothers. Not long after their arrival, the Cranley men discover that the Fairfax family is, well, rather odd, with undercurrents flowing through the evening. Tensions are heightened by the arrival of Cassandra’s former suitor and the girlfriend of the oldest Fairfax son.
And the undercurrents bear fruit. Early the next morning, Christopher is awakened by a scream. The Duchess of Hinwick is at the bottom of the stairs, a jeweled knife stuck in her back. And all the clues point to Christopher’s brother Albert as the murderer.
Benedict Brown
Blood on the Banisters is the tenth Lord Edgington mystery by Benedict Brown, all set in the 1920s. Because, like its predecessors, the narrator is the teenaged Christopher, the story is something of a comic romp through murder. And while young Christopher has reached age 18, he still pays attention to the important things in life, life food.
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.
Blood on the Banisters differs from the other lord Edgington mysteries in that the entire story unfolds with in 24 hours. And despite the death of the much-disliked duchess, the wedding plans are only slightly delayed. Lord Edgington, however, is determined to solve the case so that the ceremony can proceed. Stiff upper lip, and all that.
Less than week after Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S Grant at Appomattox, President Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford Theatre in Washington, D.C., and died at 7 a.m. the next morning. He and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln had been watching the playOur American Cousin, a lighthearted farce about an American rube visiting his aristocratic English relatives.
The Civil War was not yet over, but the end was near. As the news of the assassination spread, jubilation in the North quickly gave way to shock and anger. In the South, the news was greeted by some with enthusiasm, but by other, more prescient people, with trepidation. Lincoln’s death would not bode well for the South.
Harold Holzer, one of the leading authorities in the United States on Lincoln and the era, considered the first-hand accounts – diaries, letters, newspaper editorials, official announcements, testimonies, affidavits, speeches, and more. (It surprises us today that the reports took weeks to reach the broad mass of people North and South). He then collected some of the best and assembled President Lincoln Assassinated!! The Firsthand Story of the Murder, Manhunt, Trial, and Mourning.
To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.
Martin Van Buren had recently been inaugurated as president, the day after President Andrew Jackson and Congress recognized the new Republic of Texas. The Whigs were establishing themselves as a new political party, having held their first national convention in Pennsylvania. Business conditions were unsettled, following the Panic of 1837 in which numerous banks had failed.
On July 4, 1837, a large group gathered in Concord, Massachusetts to commemorate the Battle of Lexington and Concordin 1775, the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and the American Revolution (1775-1783). The Concord Battle Monument Committee has commissioned a stone obelisk for the occasion, along with a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803-1882). The monument was unveiled, and Emerson read his poem, originally entitled “Hymn: Sung at the Completion of the Concord Monument.”
Barrister William Benson has an unusual defendant in a murder trial. Karmen Naylor is the daughter of Tony Naylor, the leader of one of London’s two crime families. Karmen appears to be the exception – she left home early, made her way to university, and stayed away from London. She only returned to care for her father after he suffered a stroke. She’s charged with the murder of one her father’s top lieutenants.
Of course, Benson himself is unusual, especially for a barrister. He served 11 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit, studied law, and determined that he would become a criminal defense attorney. He has a string of legal victories over some of London’s top prosecutors. The prosecutors, and sometimes the judges, hate Benson and believe he was guilty. His assisting attorney is Tess De Vere, who hails from one of London’s top legal firms. She’s a top-notch investigator, more than attracted to Benson, and struggling with her own demons from the past.
The case against Karmen Naylor is largely circumstantial, complicated by the fact that the victim’s body has never been found. Investigators found his blood, and a lot of it, at the office where he worked. Traces of his blood were found in Naylor’s car and her boat. But the case is becoming more complex. More evidence unfolds. More witnesses emerge. And Benson is warned that if his client walks free, Benson and his associates won’t live to enjoy the victory.
John Fairfax, aka William Broderick
Fatal Proof is the fourth William Benson novel by British author John Fairfax. Like its predecessors, it’s finely written, a gripping story that grabs you by the throat. Fairfax throws so many curves at his legal heroes that you wonder how they’re going to overcome them. But Benson’s prison time, extraordinary mind, and knowledge of the law will see the story through. More problematic is his relationship with De Vere, which is full of its own seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
John Fairfax is the pen name for British writer William Brodrick, the author of the Father Anselm mysteries. Under the Fairfax name, he’s also published Blind Defence and Forced Confessions. Brodrick was a friar in the Augustine order before he became a barrister and a writer. The Father Anselm mystery A Whispered Name won the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award in 2009, and Forced Confessions was shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association Award in 2020. Brodrick lives in France.
Fatal Proof and the other William Benson novels, like the Father Anselm stories, are among the very best mystery and legal thriller novels being written today. Fairfax / Brodrick has a gift, and I’m glad he’s sharing it with his readers.
Likely the single-most important thing I read this past week by an essay by N.S. Lyons at The Upheaval. It’s about change, and why things seem to be changing constantly, even when the changes are clearly worse than what they’ve replaced to swept away. “The Change Merchants: Why rule by nerds leads to perpetual chaos” is about a society and culture where change has become a vested interest for a very small handful of people. Journalist Matt Taibbi, one of those who examined the Twitter files with Bari Weiss and Michael Shellenberger, wrote out a speech on free thought for a conference in London. He didn’t give it (he extemporized instead), but he posted it, raising some of the same issues as N.S. Lyons.
We’ve gotten used to seeing abandoned spaces, like the shopping malls many of us grew up with. The closest one to our house in St. Louis was born in the early 1970s, flourished until the early 2000s, struggled for a few years, and then was torn down. After the land lay dormant for a few years, it’s now the site of a large grocery store, some other businesses, a housing development, and a large chunk of undeveloped land. James Lileks at Discourse considers “The Allure of Ruins,” while Chris Martin at Terms of Service fondly recalls “Liminal Spaces and Summers in the Suburbs.”
In the mid-1980s, I spent a great deal of time in Canada for work. The longer I went, the more I realized that, despite surface similarities like language, Canada is a very different place than the United States. Since then, it’s become even more different, like California on steroids. For example, “In Canada, Asking for Evidence Now Counts as ‘Denialism’,” says Jonathan Kay at Quillette.
The Tale of the Machine: Paul Kingsnorth has posted a useful guide to his essay series on what he calls the revolution we’re living through now. I’ve linked to many (and likely all) of these essays; they take a big-picture view of society, culture, and what many are seeing as the collapse of “the West” as we know it.
My senior English high school teacher told our class that Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes should be read three time in a life – when you’re young, middle-aged, and old. I’ve read it twice, when I was young (17) and when I was middle-aged (44). And I discovered it was a different book from what I remembered. Or was it? E.G. Runyan at Story Warren discovered that the same books came seem very different when read a second or third time, and found some words from C.S. Lewis to be a possible explanation. (I plan to read Don Quixote a third time when I get old.)
So, was there an attempted coup in Russia? What’s going to happen to the Wagner Group now? What’s the impact on the war in Ukraine, with the best-performing Russian group now in question? The shorts answers are all “Who knows?” The Free Press posted a summary of what may or may not be known, with some recommended readings (I’ve learned that The Free Press tends to stick to reporting and journalism, unlike most of the national media today). At the Spectator, Chuck DeVore sees the Wgner episode as a Russian failure – with lessons about how
There are a lot more of us elderly than there used to be, and many of us are also caring for aging parents. And one effect of that is that we’re seeing, or hearing about, more people with dementia and Alzheimer’s. Mark Botts at Front Porch Republic tells a story about one such situation. Read “The Census Taker in the Pew, Part 2.”
