Edmund Crispin

It is late at night when poet Cadogan stumbles on the dead body of an old lady in an Oxford toyshop. The following morning, the toyshop has vanished and in its place is a grocery store. Nobody, not even the police, seem surprised.

The Moving Toyshop

Theater companies are notorious hotbeds of intrigue, and few are more intriguing than the company currently in residence at Oxford University. Center-stage is the beautiful, malicious Yseut?a mediocre actress with a stellar talent for destroying men. Rounding out the cast are more than a few of her past and present conquests, and the women who love them. And watching from the wings is Professor Gervase Fen?scholar, wit, and fop extraordinaire?who would infinitely rather solve crimes than expound on English literature. When Yseut is murdered, Fen finally gets his wish. Though clear kin to Lord Peter Wimsey, Fen is a spectacular original?brilliant, eccentric and rude, much taken with himself and his splendid yellow raincoat and given to quoting Lewis Carroll at inappropriate occasions. Gilded Fly, originally published in 1944, was both Fen's first outing and the debut of the pseudonymous Crispin (in reality, composer Bruce Montgomery), whom the New York Times once called the heir to

The Case of the Gilded Fly

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."A splendidly intricate and superior locked-room mystery." - New York Times

Swan Song

Kaybolan Oyuncak Dükkani

Este es el primer caso del extravagante y genial profesor de Oxford y sabueso aficionado Gervase Fen (La juguetería errante), y una de las cumbres de la Edad Dorada de la novela de detectives inglesa. Las compañías de teatro suelen ser siempre un hervidero de habladurías. Pero pocas son tan intrigantes como la que se encuentra actuando en estos momentos en Oxford. La joven y letal Yseut, actriz algo mediocre y maliciosa, es el centro de todas las miradas, aunque su principal talento consiste en destrozar las vidas de los hombres que la rodean. Hasta que es hallada muerta en extrañas circunstancias. Por fortuna, entre bastidores se encuentra el excéntrico profesor Gervase Fen, quien halla mayor placer en resolver crímenes que en enseñar literatura inglesa. Y cuanto más investiga el caso, más cuenta se da de que todo aquel que conocía a Yseut habría sido candidato a asesinarla; pero ¿será capaz Fen de descubrir quién lo hizo en realidad? El cadáver de la joven ha dejado una pista reveladora: una reproducción de un extraño anillo en forma de mosca dorada.

El misterio de la mosca dorada

La juguetería errante

Ngaio Marsh

Christianna Brand

This annual anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together tales from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including a short novel by Christianna Brand.

Bodies from the Library 4

Case of the Gilded Fly

A Detective Story

Buried for Pleasure (Pan Classic Crime)

"Mystery stories have been around for centuries - there are whodunits, whydunits and howdunits, including locked-room puzzles, detective stories without detectives, and crimes with a limited choice of suspects. Countless volumes of such stories have been published, but some are still impossible to find: stories that appeared in a newspaper, magazine or an anthology that has long been out of print; ephemeral works such as plays not aired, staged or screened for decades; and unpublished stories that were absorbed into an author's archive when they died . . ."--

Taut And Clever, Love Lies Bleeding Revolves Around Events Which Begin At The Castrevenford Schools, Separate Boys And Girls Institutions Where Small Disturbances Have Surprising Ramifications. Gervase Fen, The Oxford Professor Of Language And Literature, Who Has Been Called In To Speak For The Schools' Speech Day By The Headmaster, An Old University Acquaintance, Is Soon In The Thick Of A Mystery Which Grows Deadlier As It Becomes More Inexplicable. Was Young Brenda Boyce Assaulted, And, If So, By Whom? Who Has Broken Into The Chemistry Laboratory, And What Have They Stolen? And What, If Anything, Is Worth The Risk Of Committing Murder? As Fen Pursues The Increasingly Convoluted Path Toward The Truth, He Discovers Happenings More Convoluted Than Any Play.

Love Lies Bleeding

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.

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY 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. 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.

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.

Swan Song (a Gervase Fen Mystery)

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY 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.

Holy Disorders

Jose C. Vales

La juguetería errante es un clásico de la novela de detectives inglesa, considerado unánimemente una de las cumbres indiscutibles del género. Cuando el poeta Richard Cadogan decide pasar unos días de vacaciones en Oxford tras una discusión con el avaro de su editor, poco puede imaginar que lo primero que encontrará al llegar a la ciudad, en plena noche, será el cadáver de una mujer tendido en el suelo de una juguetería. Y menos aún que, cuando consigue regresar al lugar de los hechos con la policía, la juguetería habrá desaparecido y, en su lugar, lo que encontrarán será una tienda de ultramarinos en la que, naturalmente, tampoco hay cadáver. Cadogan decide entonces unir fuerzas con Gervase Fen, profesor de literatura inglesa y detective aficionado, el personaje más excéntrico de la ciudad, para resolver un misterio cuyas respuestas se les escapan. Así, el dúo libresco tendrá que enfrentarse a un testamento de lo más inusual, un asesinato imposible, pistas en forma de absurdo poema, y persecuciones alocadas por la ciudad a bordo del automóvil de Fen, Lily Christine III.

Edmund Crispin

About

Books

Join the club