Carter Wrenn, the veteran Republican strategist, has written a new murder mystery.

And no it doesn't involve politics.

Wrenn has self-published a murder mystery involving a fictional small-town North Carolina lawyer — a former district attorney — trying to solve a series of grisly murders, Rob Christensen reports.

The mystery, called "Spirits of the Air," is not only a whodunit but it also explores the meaning of evil, Wrenn said.

"I tried to write a murder mystery with a character who is particularly evil and explore that whole topic," Wrenn said.

The title is from St. Paul's warning to the church at Ephesus (beware "the prince of power of the air.")

The mystery is available online through Lulu.com, a self-publishing firm.

Wrenn is best known as the Raleigh-based strategist with the now defunct political action committee, the National Congressional Club, that helped elect several conservatives to the Senate, most notably Jesse Helms.

Wrenn has also written a biography of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson. He is also revising a historical novel about Helms and the Congressional Club.

What would Jesus finance?

Two senators got into a biblical brawl this morning over a bill to start a pilot program to publicly finance three statewide positions.

On Wednesday, Republican Sen. Neal Hunt of Raleigh said the program would lead to "mediocre candidates."

This morning, Democratic Sen. Steve Goss of Boone took exception, saying that "money alone does not make a candidate."

"There's some pretty good mediocre people out in this world, and I'm glad to be a representative of these people," he said.

Goss, an ordained minister, said that he's never heard anyone at a wedding or a funeral talk about money, and he read Ecclesiastes 3:1-7, the "to every thing there is a season" verse from the Old Testament often read at funerals.

More after the jump.

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