Hayden Konig is "a part-time Episcopal choirmaster, a full-time police detective and an aspiring novelist" who works hard (but with a striking lack of success) at writing who-dunnits in a Raymond Chandler style. He lives in St Germaine, a quiet little town in the mountains of North Carolina. The stories are written in the first person, so everything is seen through Konig's eyes.
He is the creation of Dr Mark Schweizer (1956- ) who has been a waiter, a chef, an opera singer, a college professor, a choir director, a composer and a publisher. He lives in Kentucky where he is president and editor of St James Music Press, which publishes his own comic detective novels. He is also director of music at the First United Methodist Church in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. His musical publications include anthems, larger choral works, instrumental compositions and a children's opera Goldilocks and the Three Bears. He says he is now entering the final stage of his mid-life crisis. As his blurb puts it: "In the first stage, he changed careers and bought a green Jeep. In the second stage, he wrote The Alto Wore Tweed and bought a red Jeep. Donis, his long-suffering wife of 25 years, just hopes that whatever happens, there won't be another jeep involved."


The Alto Wore Tweed (2002)
The Alto Wore Tweed is an outrageous and funny book, all about murder and mayhem at St Barnabas Church. Amongst the comic quotes on the Advance Praise page, there's one from a Registered Nurse that reads, "I believe that with correct and careful treatment, Dr Schweizer could eventually become a productive member of society". This sets the tone for what follows.

The story begins with Hayden Konig, choirmaster, organist, Chief (and, in fact, the town's only fulltime) Detective, taking delivery of an old typewriter that had once belonged to Raymond Chandler. He wants to write who-dunnits, and it's Chandler's prose style that, unfortunately, he tries to emulate. He gives us frequent quotes from the crime novel that he is writing that is vaguely inspired by the things that really happen to him. This is sometimes very entertaining, as when, in his spoof novel, he receives an instruction from the bishop that All new music compositions must contain a minimum of 50% 'nonwhite' notes. (Also, in keeping with the national and diocesan guidelines, all whole and half notes willl be known as 'pigmentally impoverished'). He passes copies of his manuscript on to the choir to give them something to amuse them during sermons.

But his main problem, apart from a murdered body found in the choir, and eight helium filled sex dolls that have escaped into the heavens, is in the form of the church's temporary rector, "an unmarried militant feminist priestess". She sets about updating the church music (the thing that Konig most cares about), starting by suggesting Kum-Baya for the post communion hymn. "I tell you what," I said .... "I'll give you a chord and you start the song. Then I'll pick up my banjo and the choir and I will join in on the chorus. We'll just follow you". What he forgot to tell her was that he didn't play the banjo - well, certainly not in church.

Konig, like, one suspects, some other organists, feels that the main responsibility of a clergyman is not to interfere with the church music. He could probably manage quite well without any clergy, being perfectly capable of making up his own prayers, such as the one he produced at Thanksgiving: "Thank you God for turkeys who willingly gave their lives that we might celebrate your bounty". All this is great fun to read, and there's the murder mystery thrown in as a bonus. Recommended.

The Baritone Wore Chiffon (2004)
The Baritone Wore Chiffon begins with some spoof advance praise, such as: "I would cheerfully pay Schweizer's funeral expenses at any time" from His Grace, Lord Horatio "Wiggles" Biggerstaff, retired Bishop (who also appears briefly in the story). Hayden Konig is an engaging character who seems to spend much more time in and around St Barnabas Church than doing his official police job, although he does manage to solve two suspected murders, one in the church and the other in York Minster to which he nips over twice to help investigate the mystery of the "fairly good baritone" who turned out to be a bearded lady who had been found dead in the treasury there.

All the time, he is writing his own dreadful whodunnit, still hopefully based on a Raymond Chandler style: "There had been a murder. Canon Shannon Cannon had been killed by a poison collar meant for the bishop. The bishop wanted me to find out who did it and put the kibosh on the hit; or so said his personal trainer, Rocki Pilates, a woman with a lot to hide and and not many clothes to hide it in. She had more angles than Pythagoras". This take-off of Chandler is amusing at first, even if, as as Meg, his "significant other", keeps telling him: "It's really bad". But the novelty wears off a bit when excerpts from his writing keep on reappearing.

Most of the (very considerable) fun in the book is at the expense of ecclesiastical oddities, such as Father Barna, a new interim priest who "was a short, unattractive man with a bad toupee in a suspicious auburn color", who, after a well-paid career as a lawyer, was "now ready to begin his ministry without thought to his compensation, although he had decided, after much prayer, that it was in the church's best interest for him to accept the salary". He is full of over-the-top ideas, as when he tries to brighten up Lent ("such a gloomy season", he says) by introducing a Clown's Eucharist (in which "everyone involved will dress as a clown to uphold the feeling of clown-ness"). Then there's an Edible Last Supper, in which people can help themselves to a sort of Biblical buffet and Judas has a "Hi, I'm Judas" badge. Finally, a real donkey is introduced into the Easter procession, witrh predictable results: "The unfathomable odor that arose to the choir loft like a stench from the depths of hell".

In this book, it is not solving the murder(s) that really matters most. It's the sheer fun and exuberance of the writing, combined with an acute satirical observation of some of the current oddities of the church, that make it such an entertaining read. Recommended.

The Tenor Wore Tapshoes (2005)
The Tenor Wore Tapshoes sees Hayden Konig involved in investigating the case of a murdered man, whose body is found inside the altar at St Barnabas Church. Is this a recent murder or has the body been there in an incorruptible state since 1934? But Konig has other things to worry about, including Brother Hogmanay McTavish, a tent evangelist who uses a chicken (which, unfortunately, Konig ends up by eating) to select verses for his sermon, and the theft of the Virgin Mary Cinnamon Roll (known as the Immaculate Confection, that was making the fortune of the owner of the Slab Cafe).

Meanwhile, Konig gets on with his own writing, now not only based on Raymond Chandler's style, but with the encouragement of Chandler's ghostly presence - but not everyone will find his writing quite as funny as his choir seem to, although you can't but enjoy such character names as Starr Espresso, Jimmy Leggs (Konig's girlfriend Meg suggests that Harry Leggs would be a better name for him) and Alice Uberdeutchland.

There is fun too at the expense of the Iron Mike Men's Retreat ("God wants us to be real men. Wild men.God wants you to hooooooowl." A howl went up from around the fire), the introduction of a disastrous Puppet-Moment for children during a St Barnabas service, a woman who is going to the revival meeting "to get revirginated", and the arrival of a newly qualified private detective, D'Artignan Fabergé, who asks for a $1000 dollar fee for tracing the missing bun but is happy to accept $50. Konig himself becomes a suspect - but is finally able to track down the real culprit. All this is told with the usual humor and relish - but maybe the joke is beginning to wear just a little bit thin. It's still all highly enjoyable, though.

The Soprano Wore Falsettos (2006)
In The Soprano Wore Falsettos, Konig has given up his job as part-time organist and choirmaster, although he still helps out on occasion. A pity he gave up the job, as it was the humor arising directly out of this that provided so much of the entertainment in the previous books.

As before, he keeps on quoting excerpts from the Chandler-type thriller that he is writing, this one being called The Soprano Wore Falsettos. These excerpts (all about a "Liturgical Detective duly licensed by the Episcopal diocese of North Carolina and answerable directly to the bishop") are mercifully briefer than previously, but only some of them seem really funny (such as "Memphis Belle and I spent the rest of the afternoon up at my place, engaged in a steamy theological discourse about the American view of eschatology and dispensational pre-millenialism. Nah, not really" and "The doorman was only a Right Reverend. I had expected a Very Reverend at the least ... maybe an Extremely Reverend"). "Your writing is not getting any better," his girl friend Meg (who "has a figure that would make the Pope consider Lutheranism") tells him. "Well." he replies,"at least it's not getting any worse".

The main plot is concerned with the murder (by handbell) of the appalling replacement organist, Agnes Day (and what better name could an organist have?) and Konig's attempts, as police chief, to track down the culprit. All the usual characters appear, and I enjoyed the modernised version of Lenten footwashing: "We'll be using the traditional liturgy, but instead of washing people's feet, we'll be shining their shoes" so when people have come forward for communion, there'll be "two stations of electric polishers". It's a pity that the black on the buffers made every shoe black ... However, the pages devoted to Konig's production of a Pirate Eucharist (complete with pirate costumes, a huge macaw, a ship's bell and a choral refrain Yo,ho,ho to the Father and Son) in a neighbouring church aren't all that funny - they just sound silly.

In the end, it all gets a bit too reminiscent of incidents in previous books. I do hope the author is not running run out of steam.

The Bass Wore Scales (2006)
The Bass Wore Scales is another "liturgical mystery" in which police chief/now restored church organist and choirmaster Hayden Konig gets involved with Kokomo, a 5ft 6in gorilla. You won't be surprised that Kokomo is a talking gorilla (he uses sign language). When asked, "Will you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior?", he replies with signs meaning "Yes, Kokomo love hugs". Hugs is translated as squeezes, which is taken to mean Jesus. "Well, Kokomo's been born again," says Hayden's friend Pete. "This really opens a theological can of worms, don't it?" Unfortunately, though, the attempted baptism goes wrong and the baptiser's body is found drowned. Kokomo becomes the no. 1 murder suspect, and a reward is put on his head.

There's a lot of fun too with the small town Appalachian setting, as when police officer Nancy tests out a waitress by ordering "an Adam and Eve with the eyes open, burn the British, bossy on the hoof, a short stack in the alley and some Sweet Alice". The waitress, not to be outdone, asks her, "You want me to pin a rose on that bossy .... and maybe grease the British?" So Nancy gets "two eggs sunny-side up, a buttered English muffin, a rare steak with onions on top and two pancakes on the side". And, of course the Sweet Alice: a glass of milk. Just a simple Appalachian breakfast?

Other characters are amusing too, such as the 16-year-old wine expert, Bud, who put Hayden on to a pinot noir that he described as "bland, yet dishonest; virginal, yet tarty; grudging at first, but evolving into gingerbread. It has a bit of dirty-sock overtone and sharp aftertaste". Hayden explains, "I tried it and, to my surprise, he was right".

St Barnabas Episcopal Church had come into a lot of money ("sixteen million dollars to be exact") and, not knowing what to do with it, had left it to an 87-year-old widow to decide how it should be spent. She eventually decided "after much prayerful consideration, that St Barnabas Episcopal Church would use the money to fund a NASCAR racing team. This decision was helped along, in no small part, by several conversations with her nephew, Junior Jameson, a NASCAR driver who just happened to be looking for a sponsor. In the end, they concluded that putting the church emblem on the top of the racecar would be the perfect 'vehicle' (if you will) to spread the Word of the Lord. 'After all,' Junior said, 'isn't NASCAR racing the number one spectator sport in the country? And don't those people need to be exposed to the Gospel?' ".

The racing car duly gets blessed ("It was a fact of life in the Episcopal Church that we didn't mind blessing all kinds of things") and goes on to win race after race, before meeting up with disaster, that leads in turn to the grand televised funeral when both driver and car are buried together to the accompaniment of the specially written "hymn": Nothing could be finer, laid to rest in Carolina. The car radio was hooked to a CD player so as to "be playing The Show Must Go On by Queen as they lower him down and cover him up" while the congregation throw lug nuts into the giant grave. But the service was broken up the arrival of dozens of dogs, accompanied by hunters, looking for Komoko who was among the congragation disguised as "a five hundred pound Muslimn woman in a black burka". Well, it's that sort of book.

Father George, perhaps not so surprisingly, had decided to leave the district quickly after eight birds tossed over from the choir loft during a Pentecost service failed to fly around as symbols of God's blessing but crash-landed onto members of the congregation. He is replaced by the eminently sane Rev. Dr. Gaylen Weatherall who assures Hayden that she won't be following "those wacky Presbyterians" and renaming the Trinity: "I stick pretty much to the Prayer Book", she tells him. "Those Presbyterians can call the Trinity 'Huey, Dewy and Louie' for all I care." She also thinks Clown Eucharists and Pirate Eucharists (described in previous books) are ridiculous.

All this is fun to read, much more so in fact that the comic detective novel which Hayden Konig is still trying to write. He is aiming to win a prize in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels. Yes, there really is such a competition (see http://www.bulwer-lytton.com), and Mark Schweizer himself received a Dishonorable Mention in 2006 (in other words, he was a runner-up). But Hayden's sub- Raymond Chandler type prose soon wears thin - although luckily the excerpts are kept short.

The plot, such as it is, is not meant to be taken seriously. You just read the book for the fun of it. The humor isn't really anti-religious, as such, but reads more like an insider's look at some of the absurdities of church life.

The Mezzo Wore Mink (2008)
The Mezzo Wore Mink is set in St Germaine in the autumn. It takes a little while to get going, but the entertaining plot soon involves a couple of murders to keep Police Chief (and church organist) Hayden Konig busy, an election for mayor in which a belly-dancer competes, a Christian nudist camp (whose members call themselves DANGLE, the Daystar Naturists of God and Love!), and the first-ever performance of The Living Goblet as a Thanksgiving Day spectacular, at the end of which Hayden intends (at last) to marry Meg, both of them in full period costumes. And he is still writing his Raymond-Chandler-type violent crime stories - but luckily the extracts from these are kept shorter than in the early books.

Important issues raised include whether or not Mayor Peter Moss wears underwear, and exactly what goes on in the Christian coffee shop with the massage parlor above known as The Upper Womb. And you can't go far wrong with characters with names like the (lady) Reverend Carmel Bottoms, Hyacinth Turnipseed, Ginger Snap and Father Lemming, with his wife Fiona Tidmall-Lemming and all the little Lemmings. It is Father Lemming who decides, as Hayden puts it, to pay "five priests fifteen thousand dollars to get rid of some demons that Carmel says are lurking in the walls of St Barbabas". Hayden thinks the money would have been better spent on charitable work - but then he is only the choirmaster and organist.

Hayden himself declares, "I believe in fate, in chance meetings, and in good fortune. I also believe in the Trinity, salvation by grace, infralapsarianism, non-Darwinian evolution,and possibly unicorns, as they're mentioned nine times in the Old Testament. I wasn't too sure about the unicorns yet. I don't dwell on either fate or theology for too long because it gives me a headache, but on a morning like this, when the crispness in the air snaps you awake and you can almost feel creation in full bloom, I found it impossible not to smile at the wonder of it all."

It all makes a fast-moving and amusing tale, full of nice inventions, such as the Ferris Wheel that Wormy (owner of Woodrow DuPont's Bellefontaine Cemetery,known locally as Wormy Acres) had bought to add to the amenities, that already included Eternizak, "music piped into your coffin for as long as the bill was paid". The Ferris wheel was to provide some fun for the kids "while the adults do the burying". And, to cap it all, just when you think there's no real religious content, there's even a minor miracle at the end.

The Diva Wore Diamonds (2009)
The Diva Wore Diamonds is very similar to the previous books, but, if like me, you have been ploughing your way through some very lengthy and long winded clerical stories, it comes as very welcome light relief. It is not only short but full of fun, as when it describes the festivities celebrating the reopening of St Barnabas Episcopal Church that had burned to the ground when "most of the parishioners were there attending a Thanksgiving pageant".

Organist Hayden Konig is enjoying his new married life: "Before Meg and I got married, my fridge contained beer, knockwurst, sauerkraut and some dead mice. The dead mice were for Archimedes, the barn owl who came and went as he pleased, and was an endless fascination to both of us .... Now my refrigerator contained humus, low-fat yoghurt, some kind of salad that tasted like nettles, fava beams, free range quail eggs, and who knew what else. Luckily there was still room for a couple of brews. I kept the mice in the spare fridge in the garage."

As always, the author enjoys himself with names. So nearby churches are called Sinking Pond Baptist, Melody Mountain Baptist, Brownwood Pentecostal Holiness, Maranatha Four-Square Church of God With Signs Following, and Sand Creek Methodist. And the new Christian Education Director (or Christian Formation Director as she insists on being called) is Kimberly Walnut. It is she who organises a three day activity for Bible Bazaar 31 A.D. with two hours of biblical fun on each day in which everyone dressed up in unlikely costumes, including some little girls who performed a belly-dancing routine. "I didn't have the heart to tell them that belly-dancing, in days of yore, was the purview of prostitutes and wanton women."

Led by Brother Hog, a group from other churches are protesting outside the Bear and Brew about a plan to sell liquor on Sundays. A violent storm breaks out but Hog shouts above it: "Grant our boon, O God, and in your power, show Your will, Your Holy Righteous will, to the inhabitants of St. Germaine, that they might know and fear the LORD!" Then the lightning struck. "Half a beat later, there was an explosion, then another, and the whole roof of the Bear and Brew burst into flames." It had hit a gas tank. The volunteer fire department "were ineffective at best" but the drenching rain soon extinguished the flames. "It was as though God blew up the building, then decided to put out the fire, just to show that He could." Meanwhile Brother Hogg and the protestors had quickly disappeared "in the manner of children who realize that something they've been involved in has suddenly gone very wrong". For Brother Hog "is in quite a quandry. He can argue that he didn't have anything to do with the lightning and that it was just coincidence, but then he'd be saying that God doesn't answer prayer.... And if God does answer prayer, Brother Hogg's prayer in particular, then he is responsible, because he asked God to do it."

The plot includes newly discovered diamonds, and even the murder of a man playing St Stephen who really had got himself stoned to death. There's also an attempted sexual assault on a teenage girl, but fortunately you don't really have to take any of this too seriously.

Hayden even writes his own creation play: "Playing the part of Yahweh is always a tough gig and there are a couple of different schools of thought. One is to understate the character and portray the Almighty as an approachable, loving grandpa, sort of like George Burns. The other is to go ahead and pull out all the stops and make him more of a thundering, James Earl Jones, pillar-of-fire type of guy." Hayden goes for the latter, as it better suited the singer's voice.
By the time day five is reached, Hayden has God telling Gabriel: "Okay. Where were we? Oh, yeah. Fill the water with birds and fill the sky with fish."
Gabriel: "Umm, Boss? We did that over in Alpha Centauri. It didn't work out so well."
God: "Oh, right. Let's reverse it this time."
Gabriel: "You want me to write all this down verbatim?"
God: "No. Throw some thous and haths in there somewhere. And make it sound snooty so the Episcopalians will like it. The Baptists will change it back, anyway. Here, try this. 'Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life, and fowl may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.' "
Gabriel: "You sure got a way with words, Boss."
God: "That's why I'm God."

The author certainly understands his church background, which he both enjoys and pokes fun at, as when he says: "There were a lot of places to eat in St. Germaine, but only one for truly deep theological discussion, and that was the Slab Café. It was at this very table that we discussed the finer points of doctrine, such as whether or not a talking gorilla can give his life to Jesus, why some saints simply refused to decompose, or why tossing pigeons off the church balcony on the day of Pentecost was really not a good idea."

Hayden also presents the American premiere of a hitherto undiscovered work by Henry Purcell entitled, or so he claims, Elisha and the Two Bears that leads up to a triumphant climax in which the bears eat the singing children.

Meanwhile Hayden continues to write what he hopes will be his detective masterpiece, modelled on Raymond Chandler, which he passes on to his choir, section by section, to keep them entertained. This has its moments, as when one of the women characters "suddenly blubbed, turning on the waterworks, like that guy who, you know, turns on Niagara Falls for the tourists every morning." But these Chandler mock-ups are rather less entertaining than the author intends. The truth is that the whole story is so crazy (there's even a leprosy line dance!) that you don't really need anything more extreme. And, of course, it's all in the worst possible taste. That's what gives it its bite.

There is little about the author on the net, except for references to his published music and books.

New and used copies of the books are available in the USA. You can order quite inexpensive new copies direct from St James Music Press. However, if you are ordering from outside the USA or Canada, they have now introduced a new system that means you have to call them first. Who will want to add to the expense in this way?
The best source of used books is abebooks. They feature the stock of 13,000 booksellers from all over the world, and I have always found them to be very reliable.

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If you enjoy this sort of approach, you may also be interested in the work of Kyril Bonfiglioli.



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