The Organ Loft Murders

The year is 1879. The prestigious post of Organist and Master of the Choristers at Hartley Parish Church, West Yorkshire, has become vacant because of the sudden death in suspicious circumstances of Dr Thomas Burchill. Burchill was renowned the length and breadth of Britain and the Empire for the choir; so much so that Queen Victoria summoned the singers to Windsor Castle on more than one occasion. Burchill’s position is now up for grabs, and there is a long list of contenders for the role: this will be a once in a lifetime opportunity for the successful applicant, for they will dominate music-making of every kind throughout Hartleydale. More to the point, Hartley Parish Church is on the verge of becoming a Cathedral, subject to passing stringent tests, including the standard of the music-making. Seven applicants are shortlisted by the ambitious Vicar, Dr Percy G. Banks, assisted by his long-time friend and mentor, Charleton Mann, of Yorbridge Cathedral. The day of the auditions arrives. Candidates fail to appear or deliberately play badly apart from Dr Algernon Burford, who is about to steal the show when he is brutally killed at the organ console. Thus begins a story of murder, betrayal, passion, poisoned relationships and much more. Victorian Hartleydale is rocked to its foundations as the truth behind its prim and proper establishment emerges. Detective Chief Inspector Wright Watson, Head of the newly formed Hartley CID, together with Detective Sergeant Harry Makepeace, will have to disentangle a complex web of lies, deceit, double-dealing, and downright hypocrisy in order to cleanse the town, its parish church, its political class and its governing society once and for all. He will nearly die himself in the process; all because of one person’s ruthless and murderous ambition to wreak revenge on the world of the church organ loft.

1 May 1976. Thirteen-year- old ‘Minnie’ Hargreaves is murdered, and her body half buried on a building site at the edge of Holme Hill, a village in West Yorkshire where she lived with her parents. David Harrison, a near-neighbour, is convicted of the crime and sentenced to life imprisonment. He dies in prison. 43 years later, Holme Hill becomes the scene of two more murders: Rhys Williams, a lonely old widower, found on a bench by the village cricket ground. A week later Peter Smith is found face down at the organ in Salem Chapel. Both corpses have a quotation from the Bible pinned to them, along with dates - the first two when Williams and Smith were murdered; the last two, dates in the future. DCI Donald May heads the investigation. Born in Holme Hill his family worshipped at Salem. The murders seem inexplicable: two blameless old men; seemingly the same murderer. A darker past emerges as May, DS Viv Trubshaw and DC Charlie Riggs investigate. Then a third murder, as forecast. May has seven days to the fourth. He discovers much more than just the murderer: all in one month; a month of murder.

For nearly thirty years, Geoffrey Oliver Tristram (GOT) was the celebrated Organist and Master of the Choristers at Christchurch Priory. He set a high standard for both organ performance and choral direction still widely revered and celebrated. This book charts GOT’s life from his birth in Stourbridge, Worcestershire, in 1917 to his sudden death at the age of just 61. It looks at his career as student, teacher, choirmaster, accompanist and, especially, celebrated recitalist, at home and abroad. Drawing heavily on primary source material, including family archives and photographs, the book is complemented and underpinned by the memories and reminiscences of relations, friends, colleagues, peers, and others. It includes many contemporary reviews of his performances, right from his early days as a teenage Fellow of the Royal College of Organists until his last masterly recitals. Appendices give details about Tristram’s recitals, broadcasts, and recordings, alongside specifications of the instruments at Christchurch Priory. The book also provides access to a selection of previously unreleased recordings made in the 1960s and early 1970s. Geoffrey Tristram: A Very British Organist, paints a rich picture of the man (husband, father, friend) and the musician, a player who had a significant influence on generations of organists and singers.

This meticulously edited mystery collection is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents: Edgar Wallace: The Four Just Men The Clue of the Twisted Candle Victor L. Whitechurch: The Canon in Residence Anna Katharine Green: The Leavenworth Case A Strange Disappearance The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow That Affair Next Door Lost Man's Lane The Circular Study G. K. Chesterton: The Innocence of Father Brown The Wisdom of Father Brown The Donnington Affair Arthur Conan Doyle: A Study in Scarlet The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes Edgar Allan Poe: The Murders in the Rue Morgue The Mystery of Marie Rogêt The Purloined Letter Charles Dickens: Hunted Down Wilkie Collins: The Moonstone The Woman in White The Haunted Hotel Robert Barr: The Triumph of Eugéne Valmont Jennie Baxter, Journalist The Adventures of Sherlaw Kombs The Adventure of the Second Swag E. W. Hornung: The Amateur Cracksman The Black Mask; or, Raffles: Further Adventures A Thief in the Night Mr. Justice Raffles John Kendrick Bangs: Mrs. Raffles R. Holmes & Co Melville Davisson Post: The Sleuth of St. James's Square Ellis Parker Butler: Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective Maurice Leblanc: Arsene Lupin The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin R. Austin Freeman: Dr. Thorndyke's Cases The Adventures of Dr. Thorndyke Dr. Thorndyke's Casebook A. E. W. Mason: At the Villa Rose The Affair at the Semiramis Hotel Mary Roberts Rinehart: The Circular Staircase The Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry Tish – The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions More Tish Agatha Christie: The Mysterious Affair at Styles The Murder on the Links The Kidnapped Prime Minister The Million Dollar Bond Robbery The Secret Adversary

As the Town's annual flower and produce show approaches, it's all doom and bloom up on the allotments, with prize vegetables going missing and a dead body on Bonny Grub's onion patch. Baronial landowner Fluff Wither-Fork is beside herself and calls in the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency. Who is trying to sabotage the scarecrow competition? And will Hettie Bagshot and her sidekick Tilly get to the bottom of this murky compost heap before judgement day arrives? Amid a sea of binder twine and raised beds, a spiteful killer cat is on the prowl. Who will be next, as the allotment community shake in their wellington boots?

Travel back in time to the early days of vaudeville, nickelodeons, movies, theatre organs and stars. Theatre Row on Dallas Elm Street is bustling and alive with beautiful theatres, crowds of enthusiastic patrons and movies, movies and more movies. But there is something murderously mysterious going on at the fabulous Rivertree Theatre. A cast of villains and other characters fill the pages of this intriguing saga, along with more startling stories of the many theatres that were along the fabulous Elm Street Theatre Row and the theatre organs that were in them. Shocking events and incredible performances await the reader on this journey through seven decades of Dallas entertainment history. Brilliant imagery fills each chapter. Extra features include a history of the theatre organ, an updated list of the theatre organs that were in Dallas, and a detailed list of all of the theatres that were along Elm Streets Theatre Row during 70 years of Dallas entertainment history. Special treats are the complete specifications and history of the famous Palace Publix Theatre Organ, its final resting place and many other exciting details of those unforgettable times and places.

It is the mid-1990s in the small, peaceful oil field town of Pierce, California, when one of its residents is suddenly found dead in a drainage ditch beside the road. Known as a happy-go-lucky alcoholic who wouldn't hurt a flea, Verlin Simpson's unanticipated death is quickly deemed suspicious. Verlin's devoutly Christian wife, Shirley, is naturally devastated and relies on her faith and her friends in her church choral group, the Golden-Agers, for strength. Meanwhile, Officer Tom Phillips begins working the case. Although Pierce hasn't seen a murder in over ten years, Phillips must rely on his instincts as a former LAPD officer as he begins questioning residents and church members, and investigating clues he hopes will help him solve the case and learn why someone would want to kill a drunk old man. But after the case goes cold, another body is found in a bathroom stall a few months later, leaving Tom to realize he now must consider the worst-case scenario. Pierce may have a serial killer in its midst. In this Christian murder mystery, a small-town police officer and several church members work together to solve a complicated case and find a determined killer.

1 May 1976. Thirteen-year- old 'Minnie' Hargreaves is murdered, and her body half buried on a building site at the edge of Holme Hill, a village in West Yorkshire where she lived with her parents. David Harrison, a near-neighbour, is convicted of the crime and sentenced to life imprisonment. He dies in prison. 43 years later, Holme Hill becomes the scene of two more murders: Rhys Williams, a lonely old widower, found on a bench by the village cricket ground. A week later Peter Smith is found face down at the organ in Salem Chapel. Both corpses have a quotation from the Bible pinned to them, along with dates - the first two when Williams and Smith were murdered; the last two, dates in the future. DCI Donald May heads the investigation. Born in Holme Hill his family worshipped at Salem. The murders seem inexplicable: two blameless old men; seemingly the same murderer. A darker past emerges as May, DS Viv Trubshaw and DC Charlie Riggs investigate. Then a third murder, as forecast. May has seven days to the fourth. He discovers much more than just the murderer: all in one month; a month of murder.