In this
short story, JTS takes us back to Saint Harping, where he
had set two of his Blake novellas, The Blonde and the Boodle
and Collapse of Stout Party. St Harping is Story's
definitive English small town; a model of rectitude and prosperity
on the surface, but riddled with hypocrisy and greed. In
Collapse of Stout Party one resident says to Blake: "You know
the St Harping town motto? It's written in Latin on the Town Hall,
but freely translated it means 'Under every stone there's a creepy
crawly.' Honest!"
I wonder
if The Penny Murder was a re-write of a short previously
published elsewhere? (If anyone knows for certain do e-mail and
tell me at
Guy.Lawley@dsl.pipex.com
.)
The
cocktail party anecdote short story, of which this was clearly
intended to be the first in a series, was continued in no.461 with
a very short short credited to Splash Kirby. After that...??
(Ditto.)
— GL, Sept
2005
After that , I have now
discovered (Feb 2006) there was one more in the series, again by
JTS.
You can
read it here:
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