Pignon Scorbion & the Barbershop Detectives

by Rick Bleiweiss

Overview

The year is 1910, and in the small and seemingly sleepy English municipality of Haxford, there’s a new chief police inspector. At first, the dapper and unflappable Pignon Scorbion strikes something of an odd figure among the locals, who don’t see a need for such an exacting investigator. But it isn’t long before Haxford finds itself very much in need of a detective.

Luckily, Scorbion and the local barber are old acquaintances, and the barbershop employs a cast of memorable characters who—together with an aspiring young ace reporter for the local Morning News—are nothing less than enthralled by the enigmatic new chief police inspector.

Investigating a trio of crimes whose origins span three continents and half a century, Pignon Scorbion and his “tonsorial sleuths” interview a parade of interested parties, but with every apparent clue, new surprises come to light. And just as it seems nothing can derail Scorbion’s cool head and almost unerring nose for deduction, in walks Thelma Smith—dazzling, whip-smart, and newly single.

Has Pignon Scorbion finally met his match?

For fans of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, author Rick Bleiweiss’s quirky new detective and ensemble cast of characters set against the backdrop of small-town England in the 1910s, will feel both comfortingly familiar and thrillingly new.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781665046756
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	02/08/2022
Series:	Pignon Scorbion Series , #1
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	1,077,389
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Rick Bleiweiss started his career in music as a rock performer, producer of over fifty records, songwriter and record company senior executive, and worked with Clive Davis, Melissa Etheridge, the Backstreet Boys, Kiss, U2, Whitney Houston, the BeeGees, and other industry legends.

Since 2006 as a publishing company executive, he has acquired works by bestselling and award-winning authors including James Clavell, Gabriel García Márquez, Rex Pickett, Leon Uris, and Nicholas Sansbury Smith, among others.

In his latest creative endeavor, Rick has crafted the Pignon Scorbion historical mystery series—blending his love of the past with the twisty deliciousness of a whodunit.

Follow Rick and Scorbion at www.RickBleiweiss.com

Editorial Reviews

11/29/2021

Set in 1910 England, Bleiweiss’s entertaining debut introduces Chief Police Insp. Pignon Scorbion, who’s newly stationed in the small town of Haxford, where he renews his friendship with barber Calvin Brown. While getting his hair cut, Scorbion learns that a young man named Jonathan Bentine has appeared out of the blue to claim that retired linen merchant Mortimer Gromley fathered him out of wedlock. That shocking accusation naturally disrupts the Gromley household, and Scorbion chooses to resolve the question from his chair in Brown’s establishment, turning the barbershop into his temporary office. Other mysteries follow, including the murder of a man who built stilts for a circus act. The barbershop’s customers and employees help investigate. A few false notes, such as Scorbion befriending Dr. Watson at “a meeting that paired those engaged in the art of detection with practitioners of witchcraft,” a gathering Sherlock Holmes’s colleague would be unlikely to attend, scarcely matter. Bleiweiss does a solid job of establishing his lead as a well-rounded character capable of sustaining a series. Golden age fans appreciative of a light approach to traditional tropes will be eager for a sequel. Agent: Nicole Resciniti, Seymour Agency. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

2021-11-02
Bleiweiss’ first novel is actually a cycle of stories starring a new police inspector who comes to the town of Haxford in 1910 and quickly impresses the locals.

The first case for the eponymous sleuth is that of William Bentine, an even more recent arrival whose mother, tavern singer Mary Alice Bentine, told him that he was the natural son of Mortimer Gromley, who retired after making a pile in linen sales. Gromley indignantly denies the charge, and his wife, Cora, turns out to be an unexpectedly supportive witness. So Scorbion, assisted by his old friend Calvin Brown and the other employees of Brown’s barbershop, must question everyone involved and determine who’s telling the truth and who’s not. The second case revolves around the Hopkins Traveling Circus, whose employees come under suspicion in the death of Victor Hutchfield, the woodworker who’d crafted a king-sized pair of stilts for pint-sized Freddy Rumple, an aspiring stilt walker who’d commissioned the extra-long stilts in the hope of setting himself apart from all the other stilt walkers in England. The third and most elaborate case begins with the disappearance of farmer George Barlan’s hog and proceeds to the slaughter of Barlan himself. Throughout it all, Scorbion, an obvious parody of Hercule Poirot, comes across as a comically obsessive dandy who interrogates his way thoroughly and methodically through a series of mysteries as lacking in inspiration as he is in brilliance. Bleiweiss seems to have mastered every convention of golden age detective stories except the ones that made them great.

Routine puzzles solved by a detective who can’t hold a candle to Hercule Poirot. Quel dommage!

Kirkus Reviews

Narrator Matthew Brenher tackles the trio of perplexing mysteries that confront Haxford England’s Detective Chief Inspector Pignon Scorbion. Brenher deftly captures the dapper, well educated, and precise detective. Enlisting the assistance of amateur sleuths from the local barbershop and a youthfully voiced cub reporter named Billy, Scorbion confronts issues ranging from a question of paternal identity to theft and murder. Brenher smoothly delivers interviews of suspects, the sifting of clues, and arrests of the guilty. Brehner’s portrayal of soft-voiced Thelma Smith, bookstore proprietor and Scorbion’s new love interest, stands out amid the host of British, French, and American characters. Sadly, Brenher fails to maintain some of his accents, and editing splices are glaringly audible, marring these charming mysteries reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot stories. M.B.K. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2022 - AudioFile