New crime mysteries by former Worthing Herald journalist

Three crime mysteries by Shoreham author and former Worthing Herald journalist Peter Bartram have been released as audiobooks.
Peter BartramPeter Bartram
Peter Bartram

Murder in the Morning Edition, Murder in the Afternoon Extra and Murder in the Night Final are read by actor Matt Jamie.

The books are all from Peter’s Crampton of the Chronicle series, which follows the adventures of a crime reporter in 1960s Brighton.

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Matt Jamie, whose TV credits include Coronation Street and Emmerdale, was chosen as the narrator from a database of more than 56,000 audiobook-reading actors around the world.

Peter said: “We chose Matt because he had a voice which perfectly fits the central character in the books, reporter Colin Crampton. That’s especially important as the books are narrated in the first person. So, effectively, Matt is Colin.”

Matt added: “As Colin is working for a newspaper – and also something of a detective – I played on the idea of his vocal style being a bit journalistic or slightly sensationalised, and sometimes with a hint of a 60s detective film voice-over about it.

“It was fun to be able to have a narrative character and not just a sort of neutral narration with character voices throughout.”

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Peter worked as a reporter on the Herald in 1966 before going to university. He later worked for newspapers and magazines in London before becoming freelance.

“I was at the Worthing Herald just for a few months in 1966. I was essentially doing my gap year though we didn’t actually call it a gap year in those days. I had signed up to do the three-year apprenticeship, and then I got an offer from a university, so I decided to go off there –to the London School of Economics.”

Peter’s time at the Worthing Herald was very much part of a different era, he recalls. The paper was once a week, as it is now; and it was tabloid, as it is now. But it was in opposition to the weekly Worthing Gazette: “And we had 14 people in the newsroom.

“We were working on typewriters in those days, the old sit-up-and-beg typewriters, and when you had 14 people all writing on typewriters, it was quite a racket! But I thoroughly enjoyed it.”

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The books are available individually or as a box set from Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.

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