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Title: The Moving Toyshop (Penguin Classic Crime) by Edmund Crispin ISBN: 0-14-008817-2 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.92 (13 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Very Enjoyable
Comment: This is probably the best of the Gervase Fen mysteries. All of the Fen mysteries are entertaining. The principal character, Gervase Fen, is an eccentric Oxford professor and successful amateur detective. All of them are marked by clever plotting, often with a literary element, and fine comic writing. This novel features a particularly clever plot, probably the best character development of all the Fen novels, and above all, great wit. It contains the comic chase scene to end all comic chase scenes.
This book, in an odd way, is also prescient. One of the characters is a middle-aged, somewhat dissatisfied, and prominent English poet. The book is dedicated to the author's good friend, Philip Larkin, and at the time of publication, both Larkin and the author must have been young men. Larkin went on to become the best known English poet of his generation and several of his best poems are about the dissatisfactions of middle age.
Rating: 4
Summary: Entertaining romp around Oxford
Comment: This is a fun read; definitely a Whodunnit, but Crispin's work is a lot more thoughtful than others of this genre. Lots of running around with an odd sort of eccentrics and very much in the British cozy style set in pre-WWII 20th century.
If you enjoy dry humor, literature and puzzles -- along with old movies and nostalgia, you will enjoy this book.
Rating: 5
Summary: A classic from the Golden Age of mystery fiction
Comment: The Moving Toyshop takes the classic puzzle of the locked room and turns it inside out. A struggling poet, defeated one stormy night by British Railway's unfathomable time-tables, takes shelter in an old toyshop, only to stumble upon the body of a woman inside. But when he returns there with the police, the toyshop has gone and in its place is a grocery shop. It sounds like a story from Ray Bradbury, but this mystery is caused by very common human greed.
Edmund Crispin was the pen-name of composer Bruce Montgomery. British movie fans will recognize his name as the creator of the music for the Carry On comedy series. Crispin is one of the mystery writers from the Golden Age of mystery fiction between the wars whose works have stood the test of time. It's a pity that so many of them are currently out of print.
Where American writers specialized in hard-boiled detectives, like Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe and Dashiel Hammett's Sam Spade, the British fiction of the period preferred its heroes to be languid, educated and world-weary. It goes without saying that they spoke several languages, including French and Latin, were familiar with classical music and literature, and hedonistically fond of cigarettes, whisky and good port.
The Moving Toyshop has remained a favourite of classical mystery fiction fans, because it incorporates all of the best features of its genre. The amateur detective is Gervase Fen, a disarmingly eccentric professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford University. The narrator in this story is a querulous, but biddable poet, a cross between Conan Doyle's Dr Watson and Douglas Adams' Arthur Dent. The conversations concern bad literature and Oxford dons, and usually take place in a comfortable Oxford pub. And the villains escape on bicycles.
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Title: Frequent Hearses by Edmund Crispin ISBN: 0802754570 Publisher: Walker & Co Pub. Date: 01 December, 1981 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Holy Disorders ISBN: 0380515083 Publisher: International Polygonics, Ltd. Pub. Date: August, 1993 |
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Title: Buried for Pleasure by Edmund Crispin ISBN: 0060805064 Publisher: Harpercollins (P) Pub. Date: 01 June, 1980 List Price(USD): $3.50 |
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Title: Glimpses of the Moon by Edmund Crispin ISBN: 0380450623 Publisher: Harper Mass Market Paperbacks (Mm) Pub. Date: 01 April, 1984 List Price(USD): $3.50 |
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Title: The Long Divorce by Robert Bruce Montgomery ISBN: 0140013040 Publisher: Penguin USA Pub. Date: 01 February, 1981 List Price(USD): $3.95 |
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