Quarter Note Tales #4

About the Book

Once again Axel Crochet, bearded musicologist-at-large, stumbles into murderous intrigue amid church politics and academic amphigory, where tempers run so high because the stakes are so low.

In “Cat’s Paw,” Axel is convinced by a colleague at Pittsburgh’s Monongahela University to investigate the sudden death of the university organist, putting both his academic position and his life in jeopardy. In “The Carcassonne Codex,” Axel attends a professional meeting in Minneapolis. He soon finds himself thrust in the middle of a murderous plot after he is handed a pill bottle by a hotel housemaid and becomes suspicious about the death of a noted medievalist. In “If Thine Eye Offend Thee,” Axel begins a new position as music director at a wealthy church where abuses by the rector have alienated the congregation and evoked calls for his removal. Axel encounters a warm welcome from the choir, but hostility from the sinister senior warden.

In this trilogy of murder mysteries, a curious musicologist with a propensity for attracting mayhem must overcome professional jealousies, evil plots and bizarre chains of events.

About the Author

After completing careers as musicologist and calculus teacher, Arthur Wenk now practices psychotherapy in Oakville, Ontario, and serves as music director at a church in Toronto. In addition to directing the choral program, Wenk gives lectures on film, western culture, and music; performs Mozart piano concertos; and has recently begun a new career as organ recitalist.