Meet crime reporter Colin Crampton, part avenging angel, part gutter journalist. He’s the smart-talking hero of the new Crampton of the Chronicle crime series which kicks off with Headline Murder.
So fasten yourself into a time machine and travel back to 1962 - the start of the Swinging Sixties. The town is Brighton, a louche seaside town on England’s southern coast.
Crampton is desperate for a front-page story. But it's August and the silly season for news. The only tip-off he has been about the disappearance of the seafront's crazy-golf proprietor, Arnold Trumper.
Crampton thinks the story is about as useful as a set of concrete water-wings. But when he learns that Trumper's vanishing act is linked to an unsolved murder, he scents a front-page scoop. Powerful people are determined Crampton must not discover the truth. But he is quite prepared to use every newspaper scam in the book to land his exclusive.
The trouble is, it's his girlfriend, feisty Australian Shirley Goldsmith, who to often ends up on the wrong end when a scam backfires. Crampton has to overcome dangers they never mentioned at journalism school before he writes his story.
Peter Lovesey, former chairman of the Crime Writers’ Association, and multi-award winning crime writer says: Superbly crafted and breezy as a stroll along the pier, this Brighton-based murder mystery is a delight. Headline Murder is the real deal, giving a wonderful insight into local journalism and capturing the swinging sixties to perfection. Bring on the next Crampton Chronicle.
In this extract, Crampton heads for a rendezvous with a contact in a run-down bar.
Prinny’s Pleasure was the ideal rendezvous for a clandestine meeting.
It was a run-down boozer in a modest street of terraced cottages in the North Laine part of town. The place had frosted glass windows and a door with peeling brown paint. A pub sign board hung from a rusting bracket above the door. The board featured a portrait of Mrs. Fitzherbert wearing a bouffant wig. Or it could have been her own hair with a following wind.
More to the point, the place had hardly any customers. Which suited Ted and me just fine. I pushed through the door into the bar. The room was an old-fashioned snug once patronized by Victorian gentry who thought themselves too posh to drink with workers in the public bar. Green flock wallpaper had turned grey. The place smelt of stale beer.
Jeff, the landlord, perched on a stool behind the bar. He was a thin man wearing a blue shirt at least one size too big. He had two-days of face fuzz on his chin and dirt under his fingernails. He was lighting a Capstan Full Strength.
I walked over to the bar. It was empty except for an ashtray of Jeff’s dog-ends and a glass cabinet containing two cheese sandwiches and a dead fly.
I said: “Give me a large gin, small tonic, one ice cube and two slices of lemon.”
He said: “Bleedin’ hell. What do you think this is? A cocktail lounge?”
“I took it for a slop house that had gone down in the world, but I thought I’d try and get a drink anyway. Still, I can always take my raging thirst elsewhere.”
“Journalists! Full of back-chat and bullshit.”
Jeff grumbled something else in the same vein and slid off his stool. He grabbed a glass from under the bar and turned towards the optics.
The pub’s door creaked. I looked round. Ted Wilson stood framed in the opening. He glanced back furtively, then hurried inside.
“Better add a large scotch to the order,” I said to Jeff. “No ice. And don’t be too quick on the draw with those optics.”
Introducing Peter Bartram
Peter Bartram brings years of experience as a journalist to his Crampton of the Chronicle crime series – which features crime reporter Colin Crampton in 1960s Brighton. Peter has done most things in journalism from door-stepping for quotes to writing serious editorials. He’s interviewed cabinet ministers and crooks – at least the crooks usually answer the questions, he says. He’s pursued stories in locations as diverse as 700 feet down a coal mine and a courtier’s chambers at Buckingham Palace. (It’s easier to get into the coal mine but at least you don’t have to wear a hat with a lamp on it in Buckingham Palace.) Peter wrote 21 non-fiction books, including five ghost-written, in areas such as biography, current affairs, and how-to titles, before turning to crime – and penning Headline Murder, the first novel in the Crampton series. As an appetizer for the main course, there is a selection of Crampton of the Chronicle short stories at www.colincrampton.com.
Link to buy the book:
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| http://www.amazon.com/Headline-Murder-Crampton-Chronicle-Mystery/ |
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