Bis der alte Gobbo offenbart: der verhaftete Mörder kann es nicht gewesen sein. Kurz vor Fens Ankunft geschah zwar ein grausamer Mord, aber das ist längst geklärt und Schnee von gestern. Stattdessen faulenzt er mit seinen neuen Bekannten, dem Major und dem Pfarrer. Hier sollte er eigentlich an einem Mammutwerk über die britische Nachkriegsliteratur schreiben. Professor Fen hat Oxford für einen Arbeitsurlaub verlassen und in einem kleinen Dorf in Devonshire Quartier bezogen. Since I did like The Moving Toyshop, I plan to go back and try some of the earlier books in the series, but will likely give the later installments a miss.Įin netter Krimi, aber schon leicht angestaubt und an manchen Stellen schlecht gealtert.
GLIMPSES FORGOTTEN FULL
Unfortunately, the author's distaste for women was in full play here. This was especially evident in contrast with, for instance, book 8 of this series, where everyone was so unpleasant that I hardly cared who got murdered. The saving grace of this book was the entertaining secondary characters, especially the Major and the Rector. Fen, our amateur detective protagonist, does little detecting and disappears from the narrative for long stretches. The mysteries themselves were convoluted and improbable, as was the bungling of the police. Even more displeasing was the crude sexual (and usually sexist) jokes that seem to have largely displaced the more literary cleverness that characterized Crispin's earlier books. This later installment is somewhat at odds with the feel of the earlier books - there is a strange and to me displeasing juxtaposition of more explicit nastiness (animal torture, human dismemberment, child abuse, unhealthy sexuality) with sudden farcical scenes of slapstick. His music was composed using his real name, Bruce Montgomery. He moved to a new house he had built at Week, a hamlet near Dartington, in 1964, then, late in life, married his secretary Ann in 1976, just two years before he died from alcohol related problems. Otherwise he enjoyed a quiet life (enlivened by music, reading, church-going and bridge) in Totnes, a quiet corner of Devon, where he resisted all attempts to develop or exploit the district, visiting London as little as possible. He had always been a heavy drinker and, unfortunately, there was a long gap in his writing during a time when he was suffering from alcohol problems. His friends included Philip Larkin, Kingsley Amis and Agatha Christie. He also edited science fiction anthologies, and became a regular crime fiction reviewer for The Sunday Times. But he was also well known for his concert and church music). He wrote the music for six of the Carry On films. After a brief spell of teaching, he became a full-time writer and composer (particularly of film music. His first crime novel and musical composition were both accepted for publication while he was still an undergraduate at Oxford. Edmund Crispin was the pseudonym of (Robert) Bruce Montgomery (1921-1978).
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