Edmund Crispin

Edmund Crispin

Edmund Crispin was the pseudonym of Robert Bruce Montgomery (2 October 1921 — 15 September 1978), an English crime writer and composer. Montgomery wrote nine detective novels and two collections of short stories under the pseudonym Edmund Crispin (taken from a character in Michael Innes’s Hamlet, Revenge!). The stories feature Oxford don Gervase Fen, who is a Professor of English at the University and a fellow of St Christopher’s College, a fictional institution that Crispin locates next to St John’s College. The whodunit novels have complex plots and fantastic, somewhat unbelievable solutions, including examples of the locked room mystery. They are written in a humorous, literary and sometimes farcical style and they are also among the few mystery novels to break the fourth wall occasionally and speak directly to the audience.

Crispin is considered by many to be one of the last great exponents of the ‘classic’ crime mystery.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Case of the Gilded Fly (1944)
Holy Disorders (1945)
The Moving Toyshop (1946) was dedicated to Crispin’s great friend and fellow admirer of the work of John Dickson Carr, Philip Larkin.
Swan Song (1947)
Love Lies Bleeding (1948)
Buried for Pleasure (1948)
Frequent Hearses (1950)
The Long Divorce (1952)
Beware of the Trains (1953) (short story collection)
The Glimpses of the Moon (1977)
Fen Country (1979) (short story collection, published posthumously)

Publications

Buy it here.

Holy Disorders takes Oxford don and part time detective Gervase Fen to the town of Tolnbridge, where he is happily bounding around with a butterfly net until the cathedral organist is murdered, giving Fen the chance to play sleuth. The man didn’t have an enemy in the world, and even his music was inoffensive: could he have fallen foul of a nest of German spies or of the local coven of witches, ominously rumored to have been practicing since the 17th century?

Buy it here.

As inventive as Agatha Christie, as hilarious as P.G. Wodehouse – discover the delightful detective stories of Edmund Crispin. Crime fiction at its quirkiest and best.

Castrevenford school is preparing for Speech Day and English professor and amateur sleuth Gervase Fen is called upon to present the prizes. However, the night before the big day, strange events take place that leave two members of staff dead. The Headmaster turns to Professor Fen to investigate the murders.

While disentangling the facts of the case, Mr Fen is forced to deal with student love affairs, a kidnapping and a lost Shakespearean manuscript. By turns hilarious and chilling, Love Lies Bleeding is a classic of the detective genre.

THE MOVING TOYSHOP — Buy it here

Richard Cadogan, poet and would-be bon vivant, arrives for what he thinks will be a relaxing holiday in the city of dreaming spires. Late one night, however, he discovers the dead body of an elderly woman lying in a toyshop and is coshed on the head. When he comes to, he finds that the toyshop has disappeared and been replaced with a grocery store. The police are understandably skeptical of this tale but Richard’s former schoolmate, Gervase Fen (Oxford professor and amateur detective), knows that truth is stranger than fiction (in fiction, at least). Soon the intrepid duo are careening around town in hot pursuit of clues but just when they think they understand what has happened, the disappearing-toyshop mystery takes a sharp turn…

Erudite, eccentric and entirely delightful – Before Morse, Oxford’s murders were solved by Gervase Fen, the most unpredictable detective in classic crime fiction.

PUBLISHER: HarperCollins

PUBLICATION DATE: 4th June 2015

BEWARE OF THE TRAINS — Buy it here.

How acute are your powers of perception? Do they begin to match those of Gervase Fen, Oxford don and sleuth supreme? These sixteen short stories are classic examples of Fen’s mastery of his art-solving the most insoluble cries where even the best brains in the police force are frankly baffled. They also allow you to flex your own crime-solving museles: each story contains all the clues needed to anticipate the outcome, using logic and common sense… with a bit of ingenuity thrown in! Do you dare to take them on?

Published: BLOOMSBURY READER, 28th October 2011

BURIED FOR PLEASURE — Buy it here.

As inventive as Agatha Christie, as hilarious as P.G. Wodehouse – discover the delightful detective stories of Edmund Crispin. Crime fiction at its quirkiest and best.

In the sleepy English village of Sanford Angelorum, professor and amateur detective Gervase Fen is taking a break from his books to run for Parliament. At first glance, the village he’s come to canvass appears perfectly peaceful, but Fen soon discovers that appearances can be deceptive: someone in the village has discovered a dark secret and is using it for blackmail. Anyone who comes close to uncovering the blackmailer’s identity is swiftly dispatched.

As the joys of politics wear off, Fen sets his mind to the mystery but finds himself caught up in a tangled tale of eccentric psychiatrists, escaped lunatics, beautiful women and lost heirs.

Erudite, eccentric and entirely delightful – Before Morse, Oxford’s murders were solved by Gervase Fen, the most unpredictable detective in classic crime fiction.

Published: VINTAGE, 1st October 2009

Buy it here.

As inventive as Agatha Christie, as hilarious as P.G. Wodehouse – discover the delightful detective stories of Edmund Crispin. Crime fiction at its quirkiest and best.

When an opera company gathers in Oxford for the first post-war production of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger its happiness is soon soured by the discovery that the unpleasant Edwin Shorthouse will be singing a leading role. Nearly everyone involved has reason to loathe Shorthouse but who amongst them has the fiendish ingenuity to kill him in his own locked dressing room?

In the course of this entertaining adventure, eccentric Oxford don and amateur sleuth Gervase Fen has to unravel two murders, cope with the unpredictability of the artistic temperament, and attempt to encourage the course of true love.

Erudite, eccentric and entirely delightful – Before Morse, Oxford’s murders were solved by Gervase Fen, the most unpredictable detective in classic crime fiction.

Reviews

“A splendid reminder of the intricate craft involved in creating a superior locked room mystery… Crispin provides neatly observed characters, clues honestly presented, a denouement which is both outrageous and satisfying and a splendidly offhand opening” – The Times

“The books are fast, fun and smart, their hero charming, frivolous, brilliant and badly behaved” – New Review

“One of the most literate mystery writers of the twentieth century” – Boston Globe

FEN COUNTRY (THE GERVASE FEN MYSTERIES) — Buy it here

Dandelions and hearing aids, a bloodstained cat, a Leonardo drawing, a corpse with an alibi, a truly poisonous letter…just some of the unusual clues that Oxford don/detective Gervase Fen and his friend Inspector Humbleby are confronted with in this sparkling collection of short mystery stories by one of the great masters of detective fiction.

PUBLISHER: Bloomsbury

PUBLICATION DATE: 20 December 2012

THE GLIMPSES OF THE MOON

When the first victim’s head is sent floating down the river, the village’s ruralcalm is shattered. Soon the corpses are multiplying and the entire community is involved in the murder hunt. While the rector, the major, the police and a journalist, desperate for the scoop of the century, chase false trails, it is left to Gervase Fen, Oxford don and amateur criminologist, to uncover the sordid truth.

Published: BLOOMSBURY READER, 28th October 2011

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FREQUENT HEARSES — Buy it here

Stars, Starlets, Floozies and factotums to the film world-Gervase, Fen suspects them all…Gervase Fen is more at home in his ivory tower than in a London film studio, but Murder can take place anywhere, and aspiring actress Gloria Scott’s suicide definitely looks like murder.Oxford don Gervase Fen is at the film studios to advise about a film biography of Alexander Pope. Gloria Scott appears to have had little reason for wanting to kill herself by jumping off Waterloo bridge, but someone has taken great pains to hide Gloria’s real identity, and Gervase Fen’s detective nose begins to twitch. When a lecherous cameraman is poisonded before his very eyes, Fen finds himself ‘consulting’ on a far more familiar matter: murder.

PUBLISHER: Bloomsbury Reader

PUBLICATION DATE: 28 October 2011

Buy it here.

As inventive as Agatha Christie, as hilarious as P.G. Wodehouse – discover the delightful detective stories of Edmund Crispin. Crime fiction at its quirkiest and best.

Yseut Haskell, a pretty but spiteful young actress with a talent for destroying men’s lives, is found dead in a college room just metres from the office of unconventional Oxford don and amateur detective, Gervase Fen. The victim is found wearing an unusual ring, a reproduction of a piece in the British Museum featuring a gold gilded fly but does this shed any light on her murder? As they delve deeper into Yseut’s unhappy life the police soon realise that anyone who knew herwould have shot her, but can Fen discover who could have shot her?

Erudite, eccentric and entirely delightful – Before Morse, Oxford’s murders were solved by Gervase Fen, the most unpredictable detective in classic crime fiction.

LOVE LIES BLEEDING – Buy it here

As inventive as Agatha Christie, as hilarious as P.G. Wodehouse – discover the delightful detective stories of Edmund Crispin. Crime fiction at its quirkiest and best.

Castrevenford school is preparing for Speech Day and English professor and amateur sleuth Gervase Fen is called upon to present the prizes. However, the night before the big day strange events take place that leave two members of staff dead. The Headmaster turns to Professor Fen to investigate the murders.

While disentangling the facts of the case, Mr Fen is forced to deal with student love affairs, a kidnapping and a lost Shakespearean manuscript. By turns hilarious and chilling, Love Lies Bleeding is a classic of the detective genre.

Erudite, eccentric and entirely delightful – Before Morse, Oxford’s murders were solved by Gervase Fen, the most unpredictable detective in classic crime fiction.

PUBLISHER: Vintage

PUBLICATION DATE: 5th April 2007

HOLY DISORDERS

As inventive as Agatha Christie, as hilarious as P.G. Wodehouse – discover the delightful detective stories of Edmund Crispin. Crime fiction at its quirkiest and best.

Holy Disorders takes Oxford don and part time detective Gervase Fen to the town of Tolnbridge, where he is happily bounding around with a butterfly net until the cathedral organist is murdered, giving Fen the chance to play sleuth. The man didn’t have an enemy in the world, and even his music was inoffensive: could he have fallen foul of a nest of German spies or of the local coven of witches, ominously rumored to have been practicing since the 17th century?

Tracking down the answer pleases Fen immensely – only the reader will have a better time.

Erudite, eccentric and entirely delightful – Before Morse, Oxford’s murders were solved by Gervase Fen, the most unpredictable detective in classic crime fiction.

Published: VINTAGE, 5th April 2007

Buy the book HERE

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