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dejunker's review
5.0
I adore murder mysteries with humor. AND as An Episcopalian since my first year in Seminary (MDiv 2014), I adore the Episcopal liturgy jokes! Let’s hope this series doesn’t get too repetitive but I will get the next book at church on Sunday (note, I read this one Sunday, Monday, Tuesday). If I didn’t have EfM mentoring to do, I’d read two of these a week.
triscuit807's review
4.0
This is what happens when you need to "read a funny book" (PopSugar 2015) for your Reading Challenge and you ask Facebook for suggestions. So glad I did! Hayden Konig is independently wealthy, a lover of both classical music and Raymond Chandler novels (he both composes music and writes really bad mysteries) , a choir master and organist, and the head of police in a small town in the mountains of N. Carolina. All of that is really unlikely and that's some of the sanest stuff in this book. The Chandler knock-off that Konig writes is included in the book and is IMHO the weakest part. OTOH I quite enjoyed the lyrics that he wrote. But really it's the people that Konig interacts with that are the real treasures in this book (OMG Arlen and his "girls"!), the murder mystery is really incidental to the hijinks.
bookandcat's review
5.0
Very amusing, light reading. Plenty of inside jokes for people who have sung in choirs or worked at churches.
liloud0626's review
3.0
Light-hearted mystery. Calling it hilarious is a bridge too far; I found his humor rather predictable. Still, the Episcopal setting in a congregation of characters was a lot of fun. And he's a fellow grad of my beloved alma mater, so I gotta give him props.
ericwelch's review
4.0
Our hero, Hayden, is a chief of detectives (the only detective in town) by day and the rest of the time choir director at the local Episcopal church with a master’s in music composition and a degree in law enforcement.. He drives a ‘62 Chevy that has rolled over the odometer four times, according to the notches he keeps on the steering wheel, and it’s fully equipped with blue lights, siren, and really expensive Marantz stereo speakers. He keeps his ticket pad in the office.
He had a standard way of eliminating dates that seemed incompatible or were going nowhere: the Knock n’ Bach strategy. First stop is knockwurst and sauerkraut followed by the Credo from the B minor Mass (one of my all time favorite pieces of music by-the-way.) Before he met Megan who actually loved the stuff, he had a well-earned reputation as a boring date.
The new female minister (Herself) at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church is less traditional than he would like, and requests they sing Kum-Baya. He demurs and doesn’t hand out the music so during the service the minister winds up doing a solo. “She had sounded vaguely like Ted Kennedy doing an impression of Willie Nelson on a bad day. Altogether, it might not have been the effect she was hoping for. The congregation, for some strange reason, didn’t join in, but sat there, mute, as if suddenly struck dumb by the Holy Spirit. “Sorry,” I had said after the service, “I thought you were just kidding about Kum-Baya. But you did a great job.”
Hayden is also a wannabe writer and the title of each book in the series is the title of the book he happens to be working on. His girl-friend Meg, keeps pointing out how awful is his writing and suggesting he enter the Buler-Lytton contest for bad sentences. He prints out a chapter each week and distributes it in the choir folders so the choir has something to read during the sermon. Filled with ridiculous similes and metaphors, the reader is treated to the book within a book. For example: Pulling up a chair, she sat down gracefully, crossing her tweed-covered legs with an elegance belying the sound of tweed-on-tweed, a sound not unlike forty Amish farmers shucking corn. . . She was really ranting now. I could always tell when they were mad. This one was beet-red and her hands were clenching and unclenching the loaded shotgun that I had left sitting on the table. I suddenly realized I had made a tactical error. Still, I had her hooked like a tweed tuna and I had to reel her in. “These ain’t metaphors. Only an idiot would try to use an unlicensed metaphor in a detective story. These what I’m usin’ is similes pure and simple.” I lit a cigar
Some wonderful scenes. I think my favorite is accident scene Hayden is called to where Carleton’s wife leaped through the sunroof of his car, splatting on the pavement. When queried as to why she might have done that, Carleton replies she thought it was the Rapture. She started screaming ‘He’s back, He’s back.’ Then she climbed right out of the sunroof and jumped out of the car.” “Excuse me?” Nancy stopped writing, raised an eyebrow and looked Carlton in the face. “She thought it was the Rapture,” Carlton continued, shaking his head. “You know, like in those Left Behind books. She thought Jesus was going to lift her up into the sky. Look, I was trying to slow down, but she wouldn’t wait till I stopped.” “Why would she think it was the Rapture?” I asked. “We passed a half-dozen naked people floating into the air and then she saw Jesus.” “She saw Jesus?” Nancy asked, pen poised over the paper but seemingly unable to take any notes. “Well,” said Carlton, gesturing toward the pickup truck, “anyway, she saw Arlen.” Arlen Pearl was dressed in a white sheet leaning against his old pickup. He was in his mid-thirties I’d guess, but I didn’t know for sure. He had shoulder length blond hair and a beard but, in my opinion, he didn’t bear much resemblance to Jesus. The tarp came off Arlen’s truck and the eight sex dolls floated off into the sky. “I stopped the truck by the side of the road and I was shouting at the dolls ‘Come back here.’ I guess my arms were up in the air like this,” he said, lifting his hands toward the heavens. “I just wanted them to come back. Sheesh. They cost almost thirty dollars apiece. I was going to sell them to the guys after the party. Then Carlton comes racin’ by and Darlene jumps out of the sunroof.” She was convinced He was coming for her and climbed through the sunroof to get a head start. Priceless.
The naked dolls reappear at inopportune (depending on your point of view) moments throughout. Another classic is when Herself is having a wymmin’s conference and as they chant outside the church, The drums and cymbals began anew with restored vigor to the refrain “Sophia, Sophia, Sophia, shower us with your love.” As they chanted together, their collective voices straining to a frenzied pitch, suddenly one of the womyn screamed and pointed to the sky. They all glanced heavenward and there, framed by the full moon which was still low in the sky, was the goddess Sophia herself. She hung there for a just moment, transfixed in naked beauty, before drifting into a power pole and landing against a transformer. The resulting explosion and shower of fire that rained down on the wimmyn priests was enough to convert most of them back to orthodox Christianity. Four of them checked into the hospital with “severe emotional distress.” Six got into their cars and went home immediately. The goddess Sophia met her untimely end amid the fragrance of electrical conflagration and burning latex. The girls and I just stood and watched with disbelief. “The Lord works in mysterious ways,” said Georgia thoughtfully, “but Arlen won’t be very happy.” Not to mention the Bishop’s memo that all new compositions had to have at least 50% non-white notes.
I intend to read all of this series. Had me LOL.
He had a standard way of eliminating dates that seemed incompatible or were going nowhere: the Knock n’ Bach strategy. First stop is knockwurst and sauerkraut followed by the Credo from the B minor Mass (one of my all time favorite pieces of music by-the-way.) Before he met Megan who actually loved the stuff, he had a well-earned reputation as a boring date.
The new female minister (Herself) at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church is less traditional than he would like, and requests they sing Kum-Baya. He demurs and doesn’t hand out the music so during the service the minister winds up doing a solo. “She had sounded vaguely like Ted Kennedy doing an impression of Willie Nelson on a bad day. Altogether, it might not have been the effect she was hoping for. The congregation, for some strange reason, didn’t join in, but sat there, mute, as if suddenly struck dumb by the Holy Spirit. “Sorry,” I had said after the service, “I thought you were just kidding about Kum-Baya. But you did a great job.”
Hayden is also a wannabe writer and the title of each book in the series is the title of the book he happens to be working on. His girl-friend Meg, keeps pointing out how awful is his writing and suggesting he enter the Buler-Lytton contest for bad sentences. He prints out a chapter each week and distributes it in the choir folders so the choir has something to read during the sermon. Filled with ridiculous similes and metaphors, the reader is treated to the book within a book. For example: Pulling up a chair, she sat down gracefully, crossing her tweed-covered legs with an elegance belying the sound of tweed-on-tweed, a sound not unlike forty Amish farmers shucking corn. . . She was really ranting now. I could always tell when they were mad. This one was beet-red and her hands were clenching and unclenching the loaded shotgun that I had left sitting on the table. I suddenly realized I had made a tactical error. Still, I had her hooked like a tweed tuna and I had to reel her in. “These ain’t metaphors. Only an idiot would try to use an unlicensed metaphor in a detective story. These what I’m usin’ is similes pure and simple.” I lit a cigar
Some wonderful scenes. I think my favorite is accident scene Hayden is called to where Carleton’s wife leaped through the sunroof of his car, splatting on the pavement. When queried as to why she might have done that, Carleton replies she thought it was the Rapture. She started screaming ‘He’s back, He’s back.’ Then she climbed right out of the sunroof and jumped out of the car.” “Excuse me?” Nancy stopped writing, raised an eyebrow and looked Carlton in the face. “She thought it was the Rapture,” Carlton continued, shaking his head. “You know, like in those Left Behind books. She thought Jesus was going to lift her up into the sky. Look, I was trying to slow down, but she wouldn’t wait till I stopped.” “Why would she think it was the Rapture?” I asked. “We passed a half-dozen naked people floating into the air and then she saw Jesus.” “She saw Jesus?” Nancy asked, pen poised over the paper but seemingly unable to take any notes. “Well,” said Carlton, gesturing toward the pickup truck, “anyway, she saw Arlen.” Arlen Pearl was dressed in a white sheet leaning against his old pickup. He was in his mid-thirties I’d guess, but I didn’t know for sure. He had shoulder length blond hair and a beard but, in my opinion, he didn’t bear much resemblance to Jesus. The tarp came off Arlen’s truck and the eight sex dolls floated off into the sky. “I stopped the truck by the side of the road and I was shouting at the dolls ‘Come back here.’ I guess my arms were up in the air like this,” he said, lifting his hands toward the heavens. “I just wanted them to come back. Sheesh. They cost almost thirty dollars apiece. I was going to sell them to the guys after the party. Then Carlton comes racin’ by and Darlene jumps out of the sunroof.” She was convinced He was coming for her and climbed through the sunroof to get a head start. Priceless.
The naked dolls reappear at inopportune (depending on your point of view) moments throughout. Another classic is when Herself is having a wymmin’s conference and as they chant outside the church, The drums and cymbals began anew with restored vigor to the refrain “Sophia, Sophia, Sophia, shower us with your love.” As they chanted together, their collective voices straining to a frenzied pitch, suddenly one of the womyn screamed and pointed to the sky. They all glanced heavenward and there, framed by the full moon which was still low in the sky, was the goddess Sophia herself. She hung there for a just moment, transfixed in naked beauty, before drifting into a power pole and landing against a transformer. The resulting explosion and shower of fire that rained down on the wimmyn priests was enough to convert most of them back to orthodox Christianity. Four of them checked into the hospital with “severe emotional distress.” Six got into their cars and went home immediately. The goddess Sophia met her untimely end amid the fragrance of electrical conflagration and burning latex. The girls and I just stood and watched with disbelief. “The Lord works in mysterious ways,” said Georgia thoughtfully, “but Arlen won’t be very happy.” Not to mention the Bishop’s memo that all new compositions had to have at least 50% non-white notes.
I intend to read all of this series. Had me LOL.
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