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Gervase Fen #2
Holy Disorders
Oxford don and part-time detective Gervase Fen is in 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. Tracking down the culprit pleases Fen immensely. Did the victim fall afoul of German spies or local witches?
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1945
144 people are currently reading
972 people want to read
About the author
Edmund Crispin
101 books207 followersEdmund Crispin was the pseudonym of (Robert) Bruce Montgomery (1921-1978). His first crime novel and musical composition were both accepted for publication while he was still an undergraduate at Oxford. After a brief spell of teaching, he became a full-time writer and composer (particularly of film music. He wrote the music for six of the Carry On films. But he was also well known for his concert and church music). He also edited science fiction anthologies, and became a regular crime fiction reviewer for The Sunday Times. His friends included Philip Larkin, Kingsley Amis and Agatha Christie.
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. 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 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. His music was composed using his real name, Bruce Montgomery.
source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/philipg/...
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. 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 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. His music was composed using his real name, Bruce Montgomery.
source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/philipg/...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 195 reviews
July 2, 2020
”’Oh, one more thing--very important. Was there any trace of poison or bullets or knife-thrusts or anything at the autopsy? It is over by now, I suppose?’
‘Nothing of the kind.’
‘Splendid. That suits me admirably.’
‘What a pity,’ said the Inspector with heavy irony, ‘that you’ve nothing much to find out. You must tell me when you make an arrest.’
‘Ah,’ Fen was pensive. ‘There’s the rub. Means, motive, opportunity, all settled. The only trouble is that I haven’t at the moment the least idea who did it.’”
I pity the Inspector that discovers that the eccentric, amateur, detective Gervase Fen has taken an interest in one of his cases. He is smug, condescending, over educated, oblivious to all but what interests him, and utterly brilliant. He is to be tolerated because he has a knack of solving the unsolvable. His mind slides around like a pat of butter in a greased pan. He might be quoting a bit of Chaucer one moment:
The next move right on to an experiment he wants to conduct on a certain species of moth. The world is one large source of constant entertainment to him.
Geoffrey Vintner, a composer by trade, who is interesting because Robert Bruce Montgomery, aka Edmund Crispin, is also a composer, receives a message from Gervase Fen to meet him in Tolnbridge immediately and to bring a butterfly net. Now Vintner would rather stay home in his cottage with his cats and continue working on composing a new piece of music, but he is too intrigued by a summons to meet his eccentric friend to even consider refusing.
Not that refusing is an option he is given.
When he arrives, he is ignored. ”He brooded on his wrongs, cherishing them individually.” The problem is that his part in whatever adventure Gervase has planned for him has not become clear yet. He does meet the lovely Francis Butler, ”a girl of about twenty-three, with blue, humorous e yes, a tip-tilted nose, red lips, and a slim loose-limbed body.”
He shouldn’t be noticing these things. He is a confirmed bachelor!
”Bachelorhood, complacent in a hitherto indefeasible citadel, was startled into attention and began to peer anxiously from behind its fortifications.”
Forget those eyes, forget that nose, don’t even ponder the softness of those lips or the charming curves of that shape beneath her clothes. For god’s sake man, a man has been murdered.
But even Fen, who doesn’t normally give a passing glance to the charms of women, does notice Miss Francis. ””O my America! My new-found land!” he murmured; and despite an outraged glare from Geoffrey, who happened to know his Donne, continued to gaze in frank admiration.’”
If a man starts murmuring quotes from John Donne, the whole investigation might be compromised by thoughts of bedsheets and violet blossoms.
To add more confusion, there is a man knocking about by the name of Henry Fielding and no, not that Henry Fielding, unless the 18th century writer had a dark of night run in with Vlad. The plot becomes more surreal as more is revealed. Witchcraft coupled with international espionage and Nazi intrigue add to the confusion to the point that even the mind of Gervase Fen is starting to overload with all the conflicting data that leads far afield of the simple murder of a cathedral organist.
And what is Vintner supposed to do with that bloody butterfly net?
This is the second of nine mysteries that Crispin wrote featuring his Oxford don, Gervase Fen. They are witty, intriguing, hilarious, and loaded with literary references. The mystery plot in this one is almost a secondary concern as the characters all fall under the enchantment of Miss Francis Butler. I must say this is the perfect guilty pleasure for a literary junkie like myself.
I also reviewed the first book in the series The Case of the Gilded Fly.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
‘Nothing of the kind.’
‘Splendid. That suits me admirably.’
‘What a pity,’ said the Inspector with heavy irony, ‘that you’ve nothing much to find out. You must tell me when you make an arrest.’
‘Ah,’ Fen was pensive. ‘There’s the rub. Means, motive, opportunity, all settled. The only trouble is that I haven’t at the moment the least idea who did it.’”
I pity the Inspector that discovers that the eccentric, amateur, detective Gervase Fen has taken an interest in one of his cases. He is smug, condescending, over educated, oblivious to all but what interests him, and utterly brilliant. He is to be tolerated because he has a knack of solving the unsolvable. His mind slides around like a pat of butter in a greased pan. He might be quoting a bit of Chaucer one moment:
Ther saugh I first the derke ymaginyng
Of felonye, and al the compassyng;
The crueel ire, reed as any gleede;
The smlere, with the knyfe under the coke;
The shepne, brennynge with the blake smoke;
The tresoun of the mordrynge in the bedde;
The open werre, with woundes al bibledde…
The nayl y-driven in the shode a-nyght;
The colde deeth, with mouth gapying upright.…
The next move right on to an experiment he wants to conduct on a certain species of moth. The world is one large source of constant entertainment to him.
Geoffrey Vintner, a composer by trade, who is interesting because Robert Bruce Montgomery, aka Edmund Crispin, is also a composer, receives a message from Gervase Fen to meet him in Tolnbridge immediately and to bring a butterfly net. Now Vintner would rather stay home in his cottage with his cats and continue working on composing a new piece of music, but he is too intrigued by a summons to meet his eccentric friend to even consider refusing.
Not that refusing is an option he is given.
When he arrives, he is ignored. ”He brooded on his wrongs, cherishing them individually.” The problem is that his part in whatever adventure Gervase has planned for him has not become clear yet. He does meet the lovely Francis Butler, ”a girl of about twenty-three, with blue, humorous e yes, a tip-tilted nose, red lips, and a slim loose-limbed body.”
He shouldn’t be noticing these things. He is a confirmed bachelor!
”Bachelorhood, complacent in a hitherto indefeasible citadel, was startled into attention and began to peer anxiously from behind its fortifications.”
Forget those eyes, forget that nose, don’t even ponder the softness of those lips or the charming curves of that shape beneath her clothes. For god’s sake man, a man has been murdered.
But even Fen, who doesn’t normally give a passing glance to the charms of women, does notice Miss Francis. ””O my America! My new-found land!” he murmured; and despite an outraged glare from Geoffrey, who happened to know his Donne, continued to gaze in frank admiration.’”
If a man starts murmuring quotes from John Donne, the whole investigation might be compromised by thoughts of bedsheets and violet blossoms.
To add more confusion, there is a man knocking about by the name of Henry Fielding and no, not that Henry Fielding, unless the 18th century writer had a dark of night run in with Vlad. The plot becomes more surreal as more is revealed. Witchcraft coupled with international espionage and Nazi intrigue add to the confusion to the point that even the mind of Gervase Fen is starting to overload with all the conflicting data that leads far afield of the simple murder of a cathedral organist.
And what is Vintner supposed to do with that bloody butterfly net?
This is the second of nine mysteries that Crispin wrote featuring his Oxford don, Gervase Fen. They are witty, intriguing, hilarious, and loaded with literary references. The mystery plot in this one is almost a secondary concern as the characters all fall under the enchantment of Miss Francis Butler. I must say this is the perfect guilty pleasure for a literary junkie like myself.
I also reviewed the first book in the series The Case of the Gilded Fly.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
July 12, 2015
The plot is nonsensical and the characters largely unpleasant. As usual with Crispin, the main attraction is the prose.
Vocabulary enhancement:
oeillade: an amorous or suggestive glance
autology: the study of oneself
preceptor: a teacher responsible to uphold a certain law or tradition (plus learning that Anglicans still have this as a clerical position)
Vocabulary enhancement:
oeillade: an amorous or suggestive glance
autology: the study of oneself
preceptor: a teacher responsible to uphold a certain law or tradition (plus learning that Anglicans still have this as a clerical position)
February 2, 2022
Holy Disorders is the second Gervase Fen novel, following on from The Case of the Gilded Fly and published in 1945. This is very much Britain in Wartime, although some parts of normal life go on as usual - including the cathedral services at Tolnbridge, where Fen is on holiday from his job as Professor of English at Oxford. When the current organist at the cathedral is attacked, Fen invites Geoffrey Vintner, composer and organist, to take over. Vintner, a mild mannered bachelor, also finds himself attacked, more than once, during the journey and matters are not improved when the eccentric (verging on rude) Fen seems not to even recall asking him to come once he does arrive!
This is a murder mystery with a difference. Full of eccentric characters, rumours of ghosts, devil worship and Nazi spies, Fen is in a race to find the culprit before 'the Yard' arrive and beat him to the chase. Very much in the Golden Age style, this is a puzzle and the emphasis is more on plot than character. Edmund Crispin (pseudonym of Bruce Montgomery) had both his first detective novel and his first musical composition accepted while still an undergraduate at Oxford and you feel that he and Vintner had some things in common - including their love of church music and an ongoing debate about the loss of their bachelor state (Crispin married only two years before his death). This is a fun read, sure to be loved by readers who enjoy detective fiction from this era. The next book in the series is The Moving Toyshop, widely regarded as the authors best book.
This is a murder mystery with a difference. Full of eccentric characters, rumours of ghosts, devil worship and Nazi spies, Fen is in a race to find the culprit before 'the Yard' arrive and beat him to the chase. Very much in the Golden Age style, this is a puzzle and the emphasis is more on plot than character. Edmund Crispin (pseudonym of Bruce Montgomery) had both his first detective novel and his first musical composition accepted while still an undergraduate at Oxford and you feel that he and Vintner had some things in common - including their love of church music and an ongoing debate about the loss of their bachelor state (Crispin married only two years before his death). This is a fun read, sure to be loved by readers who enjoy detective fiction from this era. The next book in the series is The Moving Toyshop, widely regarded as the authors best book.
February 25, 2025
Bruce Montgomery was a talented chap. He graduated from Oxford in 1943, having read modern languages at St. John’s College. For two years, he had been an organ scholar and choirmaster in Oxford and was a published composer of vocal and choral music; in 1951, he was to write “An Oxford Requiem”. However he was to become even more famous for his light music, composing numerous film scores for English comedies throughout the 50s and 60s. This in particular must have seemed a very long way away from Oxford’s dreaming spires.
Perhaps even stranger was his alter-ego as the writer Edmund Crispin. Under this pseudonym he was a well-known editor of a series of rather good Science Fiction anthologies (which is where I first heard of him) and crime anthologies. Moreover he wrote a series of mystery novels featuring Gervase Fen, the amateur detective and Oxford professor of English at St. Christopher’s College, a fictional institution which the author located next to St John’s College.
Holy Disorders is the second in this series. It was published in 1945 after Dunkirk, a year after Edmund Crispin's debut novel “The Case of the Gilded Fly”, which had been set during World War II. Oddly his third novel “The Moving Toyshop” (which many cite as their favourite) while written a year later in 1946, was to be set pre-war, in 1938.
Our hero Gervase Fen is an engagingly eccentric over the top character: lanky, cheerful and ruddy with a clean shaven face and hair which is always plastered down with water, but with stray hair spiking up from his crown. He often seems to wear an extraordinary hat, and whenever he is surprised or shocked, will quote “Alice in Wonderland”, saying “Oh my fur and whiskers!” The author based this eccentric and absent-minded character on his own tutor, Professor W. G. Moore.
The blurb advertises this series as:
“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.”
I’m not sure I agree on either count, although Philip Larkin’s comment “Beneath a formidable exterior he had unsuspected depths of frivolity” is pretty on the nose.
Bruce Montgomery (or Edmund Crispin) himself describes Gervase Fen as: “charming, frivolous, brilliant and badly behaved”. In some ways he is reminiscent of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation, Sherlock Holmes, especially in his arrogance and lack of consideration for others. Both detectives also sink into a profound gloom after a case is solved. However they differ, in that Sherlock Holmes is energised by developments in a case, whereas Gervase Fen becomes more boisterous when he is on a case but nothing important is happening. When he does find out key information, he then becomes melancholy.
No doubt he would be amused to see the way this work is titled on kindle as:
Holy Disorders: The intriguing, suspenseful, gripping, dark, humorous and cosy cozy classics detective fiction novel adored by Golden Age crime and modern mystery fans alike (a Gervase Fen Mystery).
Apart from the illiterate inclusion of an advertisement functioning as a subtitle, the omission of the Oxford comma and the odd use of capital letters, he would (as I am) no doubt be intrigued by the English qualifier of the American spelling of the adjective “cozy”. “Well I never”, he might muse to himself, “And to think I merely intended the title as a reference to Chaucer …”
Gervase Fen has a tendency to involve all those around him in ridiculous situations, as he attempts to solve the mysteries he is pursuing. And this is how Holy Disorders begins. Our viewpoint character is one Geoffrey Vintner, a composer and player of organ music (and therefore clearly based on Bruce Montgomery himself) who lives in London. He has just received a telegram from his old friend Gervase Fen, urging him to hurry down to the small cathedral city of Tolnbridge in Devon, as Denis Brooks, the cathedral organist there is in hospital. He also demands that Geoffrey bring him a butterfly net. This extraordinary request seems par for the course with Gervase Fen, but Geoffrey becomes increasingly annoyed at the difficulties involved in pursuing what he consider to be Gervase’s latest faddish whim.
However he does his best, and makes his way to a sports department in a large store, where he is shown their stock of butterfly nets by a shop assistant with the unlikely name of Henry Fielding. This young man patiently bears the inevitable quips about his name, before admitting that he is not very good at his job, and never manages to keep one for very long. Sure enough, it becomes impossible for Fielding to keep this one either. .
Henry Fielding confesses that he has always secretly wanted to be a spy; he is not very good at anything, or bothered about the job, as he is an aristocrat (actually a minor earl) and has no need of the money. So he is happy when Geoffrey agrees to him tagging along. The two young men agree to go to Tolnbridge together, travelling to the West Country on the train from Paddington.
While on the train they meet an odd assortment of passengers, and Geoffrey Vintner . By now he is mystified - and cursing the butterfly net, which will not fit anywhere except diagonally across the railway compartment, behind the other - and by now rather disgruntled - passengers’ legs. One is a psychoanalyst called Justinian Peace, who seems to have lost what he calls his faith in psychology.
Up to this point the book has read like a light farce, but swiftly gets bogged down in detail. Peace treats Geoffrey Vintner and Henry Fielding (and us) to a mind-numbingly boring diversion into the various topical theories. There is also a section on various socialist and other political ideologies, as a gate-crashing passenger who has no ticket holds them captive with his ranting. We can tell that despite his intellectualism, this unwholesome character’s yobbish behaviour might well indicate that the author’s own political leanings are towards the other direction.
As we read this, wondering what on Earth this can have to do with the plot, we may remember (if we have read this author before) that he likes to expound on his own interests, whether they have any bearing on the plot or not. Ostensibly it is Geoffrey Vintner who is ruminating on aspects of church organ music, or history theological disputes or scholarly theological tests, but in fact it is Bruce Montgomery peeping out from behind the author.
Another of his peccadillos is the random inclusion of obsolete or near-obsolete words. Here are a few examples: “oeillade”, “atrabilious”, “divigation”,“pugency”, “poictesme”, and “unrecticably”. Usually they are near enough to another word which sounds familiar, for the context to baffle. Consulting a dictionary inevitably reveals that it is from another root entirely, with a different meaning. Some might enjoy solving the puzzle, just as they enjoy the tongue-in-cheek academic references, literary allusions, joking asides to the reader and puns; others might shrug and overlook that sentence, passing on without bothering. Others again might find it irksome, as I do, to have to check the spelling (as I listened on audio) before looking the definition up in a dictionary. But then I suspect it works better on the page. This section fills about a third of the book; in fact the entire action takes place over just three days
At last we arrive at Tolnbridge, to learn that Denis Brooks, the inoffensive organist, had been violently attacked, for an inexplicable reason, and is in hospital. Geoffrey Vintner is invited to be a guest in the cathedral’s clergy-house while he takes over the organist’s duties. Dr Butler, the Precentor has arranged this, and Frances Butler, his elder daughter keeps an eye on things there. She seems to be romantically involved with a young curate, July Savenake. There is another younger daughter, Josephine Butler, who causes other acts of seemingly malicious intent during the novel.
Geoffrey is introduced to the rest of the of the somewhat eccentric cathedral personnel. There is Dr Garbin, the morose cathedral Canon who, amusingly for the reader has a pet crow (and a wife called Lenore) although he professes not to know of the connection with Edgar Allan Poe. Dr Spitshuker is another cathedral Canon and Dutton is the young deputy organist. Several of these, as well as the curate July Savernake have regular theological debates, which intrude into the plot for no particular reason.
Gervase Fen accept the butterfly net in his breezy, offhand manner, ignoring Geoffrey’s attempts at communicating how tricky it had all been - and how he had been attacked twice on the way. Geoffrey assumes that insects are Gervase Fen’s latest craze, and indeed his new passion for entomology seems to occupy him almost as much as the murder. There is a neat connection at the end, but whether you consider this to be essential to the plot, or a peripheral event, is open to debate.
Police Inspector Garratt investigates, and does not welcome the intrusion of the amateur detective Gervase Fen. But of course our hero is much more clued up than the police. He works out that there must be
Other important characters we meet are Harry James, the shifty landlord of the local pub, who seems to know a lot more than he should. There is also Sir John Dallow, the cathedral’s Chancellor, who is an expert in witchcraft with a substantial library and collection of artefacts. He discourses on aspects of witchcraft, and relates 17th century local witch trials to Gervase Fen and Geoffrey Vintner, directing them to passages in various of his old manuscripts. But could there possibly be a connection with Satanic worship in the modern times of 1945? Wouldn't the enemy be far more likely to be Nazis? Most of the mystery fiction from this time revolves at last partly round Nazis.
But who in this cast of characters could be involved? In fact, almost anyone. Few of the potential suspects have alibis for the murders, and Gervase Fen eventually closes in on the culprits by a close consideration of the group’s movements and timings.
As in other Gervase Fen mysteries, Gervase assembles the various suspects with the aid of the police at the end, to perform a Poirot-like denouement. Gervase Fen evidently enjoys every minute of this, as he loves to play to an audience.
Did I guess the culprit? No, and I don’t think I could have in a million years. There seemed to be no clues, or even hints, and the reveal came out of the blue. Even afterwards the murderer’s motives were not easy to understand, although the reason for the crimes themselves was clear enough.
I do not feel this is can be one of the better books in the series, mainly because of the discursive nature of the first third. The middle third was mostly about establishing character, and certainly the reader of my edition made the most of their quirky natures and ways of speech, but the story lacked momentum. It was really only in the final third that I felt the action became exciting. I had a real sense of dread when Thankfully the police came in satisfactorily at the end - but to scant praise from Gervase Fen. I had suspected one person as a spy for most of the novel, in a double bluff, but my theory was turned on its head.
Will I read any more books featuring Gervase Fen, the impossibly arrogant amateur investigator? Probably, but not just yet. Not only is he hugely self-opinionated, but a hero who happily keeps his friends in the dark and ignores their concerns, even to the point of putting them in dire peril, is hard to take.
Also a little of Edmund Crispin’s writing style goes a long way. I enjoy a story with plenty of twists and turns, and even red herrings. I don’t mind being led down the garden path, nor do I need to guess the murderer correctly to appreciate the story (although it’s nice on the rare occasions when I do!) But Edmund Crispin meanders far too much, seemingly without even attempting to curb his idiosyncratic enthusiasms. I do wish there had been dramatisations of these stories though. I cannot find any, but think that they would work well, and benefit from the necessary judicious editing.
Do I recommend this golden age mystery series? Well Edmund Crispin is not a huge name in the genre, but he does have a cult following. How much you enjoy them will probably depend on how much you enjoy Edmund Crispin’s little quirks, and like his creation Gervase Fen. Also, although Paul Panting is an excellent narrator, I suspect this would be better as a quick read, on the page.
Perhaps even stranger was his alter-ego as the writer Edmund Crispin. Under this pseudonym he was a well-known editor of a series of rather good Science Fiction anthologies (which is where I first heard of him) and crime anthologies. Moreover he wrote a series of mystery novels featuring Gervase Fen, the amateur detective and Oxford professor of English at St. Christopher’s College, a fictional institution which the author located next to St John’s College.
Holy Disorders is the second in this series. It was published in 1945 after Dunkirk, a year after Edmund Crispin's debut novel “The Case of the Gilded Fly”, which had been set during World War II. Oddly his third novel “The Moving Toyshop” (which many cite as their favourite) while written a year later in 1946, was to be set pre-war, in 1938.
Our hero Gervase Fen is an engagingly eccentric over the top character: lanky, cheerful and ruddy with a clean shaven face and hair which is always plastered down with water, but with stray hair spiking up from his crown. He often seems to wear an extraordinary hat, and whenever he is surprised or shocked, will quote “Alice in Wonderland”, saying “Oh my fur and whiskers!” The author based this eccentric and absent-minded character on his own tutor, Professor W. G. Moore.
The blurb advertises this series as:
“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.”
I’m not sure I agree on either count, although Philip Larkin’s comment “Beneath a formidable exterior he had unsuspected depths of frivolity” is pretty on the nose.
Bruce Montgomery (or Edmund Crispin) himself describes Gervase Fen as: “charming, frivolous, brilliant and badly behaved”. In some ways he is reminiscent of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation, Sherlock Holmes, especially in his arrogance and lack of consideration for others. Both detectives also sink into a profound gloom after a case is solved. However they differ, in that Sherlock Holmes is energised by developments in a case, whereas Gervase Fen becomes more boisterous when he is on a case but nothing important is happening. When he does find out key information, he then becomes melancholy.
No doubt he would be amused to see the way this work is titled on kindle as:
Holy Disorders: The intriguing, suspenseful, gripping, dark, humorous and cosy cozy classics detective fiction novel adored by Golden Age crime and modern mystery fans alike (a Gervase Fen Mystery).
Apart from the illiterate inclusion of an advertisement functioning as a subtitle, the omission of the Oxford comma and the odd use of capital letters, he would (as I am) no doubt be intrigued by the English qualifier of the American spelling of the adjective “cozy”. “Well I never”, he might muse to himself, “And to think I merely intended the title as a reference to Chaucer …”
Gervase Fen has a tendency to involve all those around him in ridiculous situations, as he attempts to solve the mysteries he is pursuing. And this is how Holy Disorders begins. Our viewpoint character is one Geoffrey Vintner, a composer and player of organ music (and therefore clearly based on Bruce Montgomery himself) who lives in London. He has just received a telegram from his old friend Gervase Fen, urging him to hurry down to the small cathedral city of Tolnbridge in Devon, as Denis Brooks, the cathedral organist there is in hospital. He also demands that Geoffrey bring him a butterfly net. This extraordinary request seems par for the course with Gervase Fen, but Geoffrey becomes increasingly annoyed at the difficulties involved in pursuing what he consider to be Gervase’s latest faddish whim.
However he does his best, and makes his way to a sports department in a large store, where he is shown their stock of butterfly nets by a shop assistant with the unlikely name of Henry Fielding. This young man patiently bears the inevitable quips about his name, before admitting that he is not very good at his job, and never manages to keep one for very long. Sure enough, it becomes impossible for Fielding to keep this one either. .
Henry Fielding confesses that he has always secretly wanted to be a spy; he is not very good at anything, or bothered about the job, as he is an aristocrat (actually a minor earl) and has no need of the money. So he is happy when Geoffrey agrees to him tagging along. The two young men agree to go to Tolnbridge together, travelling to the West Country on the train from Paddington.
While on the train they meet an odd assortment of passengers, and Geoffrey Vintner . By now he is mystified - and cursing the butterfly net, which will not fit anywhere except diagonally across the railway compartment, behind the other - and by now rather disgruntled - passengers’ legs. One is a psychoanalyst called Justinian Peace, who seems to have lost what he calls his faith in psychology.
Up to this point the book has read like a light farce, but swiftly gets bogged down in detail. Peace treats Geoffrey Vintner and Henry Fielding (and us) to a mind-numbingly boring diversion into the various topical theories. There is also a section on various socialist and other political ideologies, as a gate-crashing passenger who has no ticket holds them captive with his ranting. We can tell that despite his intellectualism, this unwholesome character’s yobbish behaviour might well indicate that the author’s own political leanings are towards the other direction.
As we read this, wondering what on Earth this can have to do with the plot, we may remember (if we have read this author before) that he likes to expound on his own interests, whether they have any bearing on the plot or not. Ostensibly it is Geoffrey Vintner who is ruminating on aspects of church organ music, or history theological disputes or scholarly theological tests, but in fact it is Bruce Montgomery peeping out from behind the author.
Another of his peccadillos is the random inclusion of obsolete or near-obsolete words. Here are a few examples: “oeillade”, “atrabilious”, “divigation”,“pugency”, “poictesme”, and “unrecticably”. Usually they are near enough to another word which sounds familiar, for the context to baffle. Consulting a dictionary inevitably reveals that it is from another root entirely, with a different meaning. Some might enjoy solving the puzzle, just as they enjoy the tongue-in-cheek academic references, literary allusions, joking asides to the reader and puns; others might shrug and overlook that sentence, passing on without bothering. Others again might find it irksome, as I do, to have to check the spelling (as I listened on audio) before looking the definition up in a dictionary. But then I suspect it works better on the page. This section fills about a third of the book; in fact the entire action takes place over just three days
At last we arrive at Tolnbridge, to learn that Denis Brooks, the inoffensive organist, had been violently attacked, for an inexplicable reason, and is in hospital. Geoffrey Vintner is invited to be a guest in the cathedral’s clergy-house while he takes over the organist’s duties. Dr Butler, the Precentor has arranged this, and Frances Butler, his elder daughter keeps an eye on things there. She seems to be romantically involved with a young curate, July Savenake. There is another younger daughter, Josephine Butler, who causes other acts of seemingly malicious intent during the novel.
Geoffrey is introduced to the rest of the of the somewhat eccentric cathedral personnel. There is Dr Garbin, the morose cathedral Canon who, amusingly for the reader has a pet crow (and a wife called Lenore) although he professes not to know of the connection with Edgar Allan Poe. Dr Spitshuker is another cathedral Canon and Dutton is the young deputy organist. Several of these, as well as the curate July Savernake have regular theological debates, which intrude into the plot for no particular reason.
Gervase Fen accept the butterfly net in his breezy, offhand manner, ignoring Geoffrey’s attempts at communicating how tricky it had all been - and how he had been attacked twice on the way. Geoffrey assumes that insects are Gervase Fen’s latest craze, and indeed his new passion for entomology seems to occupy him almost as much as the murder. There is a neat connection at the end, but whether you consider this to be essential to the plot, or a peripheral event, is open to debate.
Police Inspector Garratt investigates, and does not welcome the intrusion of the amateur detective Gervase Fen. But of course our hero is much more clued up than the police. He works out that there must be
Other important characters we meet are Harry James, the shifty landlord of the local pub, who seems to know a lot more than he should. There is also Sir John Dallow, the cathedral’s Chancellor, who is an expert in witchcraft with a substantial library and collection of artefacts. He discourses on aspects of witchcraft, and relates 17th century local witch trials to Gervase Fen and Geoffrey Vintner, directing them to passages in various of his old manuscripts. But could there possibly be a connection with Satanic worship in the modern times of 1945? Wouldn't the enemy be far more likely to be Nazis? Most of the mystery fiction from this time revolves at last partly round Nazis.
But who in this cast of characters could be involved? In fact, almost anyone. Few of the potential suspects have alibis for the murders, and Gervase Fen eventually closes in on the culprits by a close consideration of the group’s movements and timings.
As in other Gervase Fen mysteries, Gervase assembles the various suspects with the aid of the police at the end, to perform a Poirot-like denouement. Gervase Fen evidently enjoys every minute of this, as he loves to play to an audience.
Did I guess the culprit? No, and I don’t think I could have in a million years. There seemed to be no clues, or even hints, and the reveal came out of the blue. Even afterwards the murderer’s motives were not easy to understand, although the reason for the crimes themselves was clear enough.
I do not feel this is can be one of the better books in the series, mainly because of the discursive nature of the first third. The middle third was mostly about establishing character, and certainly the reader of my edition made the most of their quirky natures and ways of speech, but the story lacked momentum. It was really only in the final third that I felt the action became exciting. I had a real sense of dread when Thankfully the police came in satisfactorily at the end - but to scant praise from Gervase Fen. I had suspected one person as a spy for most of the novel, in a double bluff, but my theory was turned on its head.
Will I read any more books featuring Gervase Fen, the impossibly arrogant amateur investigator? Probably, but not just yet. Not only is he hugely self-opinionated, but a hero who happily keeps his friends in the dark and ignores their concerns, even to the point of putting them in dire peril, is hard to take.
Also a little of Edmund Crispin’s writing style goes a long way. I enjoy a story with plenty of twists and turns, and even red herrings. I don’t mind being led down the garden path, nor do I need to guess the murderer correctly to appreciate the story (although it’s nice on the rare occasions when I do!) But Edmund Crispin meanders far too much, seemingly without even attempting to curb his idiosyncratic enthusiasms. I do wish there had been dramatisations of these stories though. I cannot find any, but think that they would work well, and benefit from the necessary judicious editing.
Do I recommend this golden age mystery series? Well Edmund Crispin is not a huge name in the genre, but he does have a cult following. How much you enjoy them will probably depend on how much you enjoy Edmund Crispin’s little quirks, and like his creation Gervase Fen. Also, although Paul Panting is an excellent narrator, I suspect this would be better as a quick read, on the page.
August 24, 2019
(3,5/5)
Gervase Fen, es un profesor universitario y detective aficionado que pasa sus vaciones en un pequeño pueblo de la costa de Inglaterra a principios de la 2ª guerra mundial. En esta localidad aparece muerto el organista de la catedral y Gervase Fen invita a su amigo Geoffrey Vintner para que le sustituya con organista. Es este personaje Vintner el que toma el peso de la historia y se dedica a investigar la muerte del organista. Ya desde el principio cuando Vintner recibe la invitación de su amigo y prepara el viaje se encuentra con muchos obstáculos para impedir que llegue a su destino.
Es una novela con mucho humor, muchísimo, no es una novela de detectives al uso, con una gran prosa que es un placer leerlo. El autor mezcla, asesinatos, con fantasmas, quema de brujas, adoraciones al diablo, espías nazis, de una manera completamente surrealista, pero que encaja todas las piezas a la perfección. Llega un momento en la novela que lo que menos te importa es quien es el asesino, sino seguir las aventuras de estos dos excéntricos personajes.
Gervase Fen, es un profesor universitario y detective aficionado que pasa sus vaciones en un pequeño pueblo de la costa de Inglaterra a principios de la 2ª guerra mundial. En esta localidad aparece muerto el organista de la catedral y Gervase Fen invita a su amigo Geoffrey Vintner para que le sustituya con organista. Es este personaje Vintner el que toma el peso de la historia y se dedica a investigar la muerte del organista. Ya desde el principio cuando Vintner recibe la invitación de su amigo y prepara el viaje se encuentra con muchos obstáculos para impedir que llegue a su destino.
Es una novela con mucho humor, muchísimo, no es una novela de detectives al uso, con una gran prosa que es un placer leerlo. El autor mezcla, asesinatos, con fantasmas, quema de brujas, adoraciones al diablo, espías nazis, de una manera completamente surrealista, pero que encaja todas las piezas a la perfección. Llega un momento en la novela que lo que menos te importa es quien es el asesino, sino seguir las aventuras de estos dos excéntricos personajes.
Read
August 16, 2021I don't know why I keep reading these books, they're always irritating. This one promised me rural witchcraft, is why, which needless to say was not a promise well fulfilled. Weird and uneasy combination of sub-Wodehouse flippancy and some genuinely horrific stuff in the crimes and terrors. Author never saw an adverb he didn't like.
June 5, 2016
Si bien el papel de Gervase Fen es fundamental, el protagonismo de ‘Asesinato en la catedral’ se lo lleva Geoffrey Vintner, organista y compositor, que parece un trasunto de Dr. Watson de segunda. La acción se sitúa en la población de Tolnbridge, donde es citado Vintner urgentemente mediante telegrama por Fen, ya que ha habido un atentado contra la vida de Brooks, el organista de la catedral de dicha ciudad. Y hasta allí que se desplace el bueno de Vintner, con más de una dificultad durante el trayecto.
‘Asesinato en la catedral’ (Holy Disorders, 1946), del escritor británico Edmund Crispin (seudónimo de Bruce Montgomery), nos vuelve a ofrecer otra estupenda aventura del excéntrico Gervase Fen, profesor de literatura de Oxford y detective aficionado. Fen a veces se comporta de manera exasperadamente infantil, pero también es ingenioso y erudito, con sus constantes citas a Lewis Carroll. De nuevo Crispin nos ofrece una novela inteligente, donde hace uso de referencias a detectives y a la literatura en general, y no faltan algunos momentos de humor. Los personajes secundarios están muy conseguidos, y es uno de sus puntos fuertes.
‘Asesinato en la catedral’ (Holy Disorders, 1946), del escritor británico Edmund Crispin (seudónimo de Bruce Montgomery), nos vuelve a ofrecer otra estupenda aventura del excéntrico Gervase Fen, profesor de literatura de Oxford y detective aficionado. Fen a veces se comporta de manera exasperadamente infantil, pero también es ingenioso y erudito, con sus constantes citas a Lewis Carroll. De nuevo Crispin nos ofrece una novela inteligente, donde hace uso de referencias a detectives y a la literatura en general, y no faltan algunos momentos de humor. Los personajes secundarios están muy conseguidos, y es uno de sus puntos fuertes.
May 21, 2015
Hard to believe this is the same author and main character as in The Moving Toyshop. This book has none of the lightness of touch or wit that I so enjoyed in the first Fen mystery. Fen calls his friend to a cathedral town help out playing organ for the services (though what Fen is doing there at all is never really explained), and said friend is dogged by anonymous letters, falling trunks and mystery men--and that's just on the journey out. There are far too many minor characters, adding to the confusion with their "where were you when the lights went out" alibis. Two men have died, for no real apparent reason. Marijuana is treated as if it were as deadly as heroin (a common feature of pre-1960s English fiction). Quite a promising beginning, but don't get your hopes up.
(Query: Why would members of the clergy and their families consider a cathedral a "bad place to spend the night?" Is it not the consecrated house of God? What better place for a Christian to be? Granted, these are 1940s Anglican clergy we're talking about, but still.)
I don't mind the spy-story (this was after all written in wartime), but what was the point of dragging in the coven, etc? I kept getting lost in the crowd of characters, times, alibis, extraneous details and sub-threads, and I think the author did too. Characters appear and disappear for no apparent reason. The farther it goes, the sillier it gets, and the business with the wardrobe was an insult to the reader's intelligence. If you like ridiculous reads with impossible endings, this one's for you. It wasn't for me.
(Query: Why would members of the clergy and their families consider a cathedral a "bad place to spend the night?" Is it not the consecrated house of God? What better place for a Christian to be? Granted, these are 1940s Anglican clergy we're talking about, but still.)
I don't mind the spy-story (this was after all written in wartime), but what was the point of dragging in the coven, etc? I kept getting lost in the crowd of characters, times, alibis, extraneous details and sub-threads, and I think the author did too. Characters appear and disappear for no apparent reason. The farther it goes, the sillier it gets, and the business with the wardrobe was an insult to the reader's intelligence. If you like ridiculous reads with impossible endings, this one's for you. It wasn't for me.
October 2, 2019
Dame Agatha Christie and Her Peers
BOOK 18
Crispin is the perfect author to be part of my genre-read: he and Agatha were friends.
CAST = 4 stars: Gervase Fen didn't seem this odd in Crispin's first in the series. Here, Fen is obsessed with all things having to do with flying bugs. And very strange comments that are often witty:
Fen: You make a special sort of knot.
Inspector: Oh, and what is this knot, may I ask?
Fen: It's called the Hook, Line and Sinker.
Inspector: Why is it called that?
Fen: "Because the reader has to swallow it.
And when Fen says this: "Natural shyness is a superb disguise. And shy people have a penchant toward cunning. They must, somehow, act, and since they darn't act in ways that people can see-in the open...", I clearly heard Crispin's voice saying "Being gay is a superb disguise. And gay people have a penchant toward cunning. They must, somehow, act, and since they darn't act in ways that people can see-in the open..." Yes, sometimes, an author's voice comes through loud and clear.
Geoffrey Vinter is a composer and is asked to play at a Cathedral where the organist, Dennis Brooks, has been hospitalized and the sub-organist has had a nervous breakdown. Vinter is rather afraid of the ladies: odd that Edmund Crispin was, in reality Bruce Montgomery, a composer also. Here again, we are confronted with the author's voice. Henry Fielding is an Earl but bored and works at a department-type store in the sports section. Justinian Peace is a troubled Psychoanalyst as he has suddenly realized he doesn't believe in the subconscious. Peace's brother-in-law is the Precenter of the Cathedral, Dr. Butler, who has the "frame and height of a giant." Josephine is a 15 y/o girl who is acting odd: early in the book she burns a manuscript Dr. Butler is writing. A 400 year old diary written by Bishop John reveals his attitude about flogging witches: "The screams were unusually piercing. I took no pleasure in it, as I should do, were I properly concern'd with the chastening of Satan through this punishment." I questioned a couple of motives by the end of the book but otherwise would have given this element 5 stars.
ATMOSPHERE - 4: The Tolnbridge Cathedral is haunted. There appears to be at least one revenant. I very much like that Crispin provides a diagram of a portion of the cathedral as the Bishop's Gallery is completely inaccessible (and for good reason) but pairs of eyes are sometimes seen there. Something is very wrong with the entire town, though, as there are suspicious characters everywhere. A train ride opens the book: "Geoffrey, Fielding and the clergyman, afflicted by a bourgeois terror of offending [an] unruly manifestation of the lower classes, sat impotent..." Even though WW2 is winding down in 1945, Crispin does a great job commenting on the class system. You will FEEL as if you're right there in a Clergy house drawing room having tea (natch). A Black Mass is rather bland, Fen disappointed in the lack of an orgy. There MIGHT be a transmitter and/or German spies hanging around. And the ancient witch hunts are brutally portrayed. But when all is said and done, this story doesn't really need this specific atmosphere: this element, also, is beautifully written, but I can't give it 5 stars. I prefer atmospheres that absolutely MUST be part of the story and the solution.
PLOT/CRIME = 3: The organist of the Cathedral is murdered then the sub-organist has a breakdown while practicing alone: what's going on in the Cathedral anyway? A tomb slab seems to be moving then there is a 2nd murder. It appears someone has some secrets about the Cathedral itself. But the story strays a bit in odd ways.
INVESTIGATION = 2: The plot just go downhill after the first half of this book. It's a bit confusing. And Fen saying he knows everything but not saying anything is just irritating.
RESOLUTION = 1: I think I know what was going on, but I don't know for sure why. And the BIG CLIMAX has Fen opening a cabinet and out comes...oh, I won't ruin it for you.
SUMMARY - 2.8. I thought the writing/prose/wit excellent, overall and the cast interesting. But this book simply falls apart halfway through and delves into nonsense. Read it for the jokes, the literary references, and Crispin playing Fen. But don't expect much in the way of an explanation.
BOOK 18
Crispin is the perfect author to be part of my genre-read: he and Agatha were friends.
CAST = 4 stars: Gervase Fen didn't seem this odd in Crispin's first in the series. Here, Fen is obsessed with all things having to do with flying bugs. And very strange comments that are often witty:
Fen: You make a special sort of knot.
Inspector: Oh, and what is this knot, may I ask?
Fen: It's called the Hook, Line and Sinker.
Inspector: Why is it called that?
Fen: "Because the reader has to swallow it.
And when Fen says this: "Natural shyness is a superb disguise. And shy people have a penchant toward cunning. They must, somehow, act, and since they darn't act in ways that people can see-in the open...", I clearly heard Crispin's voice saying "Being gay is a superb disguise. And gay people have a penchant toward cunning. They must, somehow, act, and since they darn't act in ways that people can see-in the open..." Yes, sometimes, an author's voice comes through loud and clear.
Geoffrey Vinter is a composer and is asked to play at a Cathedral where the organist, Dennis Brooks, has been hospitalized and the sub-organist has had a nervous breakdown. Vinter is rather afraid of the ladies: odd that Edmund Crispin was, in reality Bruce Montgomery, a composer also. Here again, we are confronted with the author's voice. Henry Fielding is an Earl but bored and works at a department-type store in the sports section. Justinian Peace is a troubled Psychoanalyst as he has suddenly realized he doesn't believe in the subconscious. Peace's brother-in-law is the Precenter of the Cathedral, Dr. Butler, who has the "frame and height of a giant." Josephine is a 15 y/o girl who is acting odd: early in the book she burns a manuscript Dr. Butler is writing. A 400 year old diary written by Bishop John reveals his attitude about flogging witches: "The screams were unusually piercing. I took no pleasure in it, as I should do, were I properly concern'd with the chastening of Satan through this punishment." I questioned a couple of motives by the end of the book but otherwise would have given this element 5 stars.
ATMOSPHERE - 4: The Tolnbridge Cathedral is haunted. There appears to be at least one revenant. I very much like that Crispin provides a diagram of a portion of the cathedral as the Bishop's Gallery is completely inaccessible (and for good reason) but pairs of eyes are sometimes seen there. Something is very wrong with the entire town, though, as there are suspicious characters everywhere. A train ride opens the book: "Geoffrey, Fielding and the clergyman, afflicted by a bourgeois terror of offending [an] unruly manifestation of the lower classes, sat impotent..." Even though WW2 is winding down in 1945, Crispin does a great job commenting on the class system. You will FEEL as if you're right there in a Clergy house drawing room having tea (natch). A Black Mass is rather bland, Fen disappointed in the lack of an orgy. There MIGHT be a transmitter and/or German spies hanging around. And the ancient witch hunts are brutally portrayed. But when all is said and done, this story doesn't really need this specific atmosphere: this element, also, is beautifully written, but I can't give it 5 stars. I prefer atmospheres that absolutely MUST be part of the story and the solution.
PLOT/CRIME = 3: The organist of the Cathedral is murdered then the sub-organist has a breakdown while practicing alone: what's going on in the Cathedral anyway? A tomb slab seems to be moving then there is a 2nd murder. It appears someone has some secrets about the Cathedral itself. But the story strays a bit in odd ways.
INVESTIGATION = 2: The plot just go downhill after the first half of this book. It's a bit confusing. And Fen saying he knows everything but not saying anything is just irritating.
RESOLUTION = 1: I think I know what was going on, but I don't know for sure why. And the BIG CLIMAX has Fen opening a cabinet and out comes...oh, I won't ruin it for you.
SUMMARY - 2.8. I thought the writing/prose/wit excellent, overall and the cast interesting. But this book simply falls apart halfway through and delves into nonsense. Read it for the jokes, the literary references, and Crispin playing Fen. But don't expect much in the way of an explanation.
February 13, 2022
Eccentric Golden Age mystery. This was originally published in 1945, and the concerns of the time have obviously influenced the plot, as one of its curious threads involved Nazi sympathisers. However, Crispin determinedly throws everything else into the mix - religion, psychology, Church music, witchcraft and ghosts, entomology, literary riddles - to give a bewildering but often entertaining mystery.
Composer and organist Geoffrey Vintner is summoned by his friend Gervase Fen (Oxford don and amateur detective) to a small Devon cathedral town where the current organist has been viciously attacked. Geoffrey is alarmed when it becomes clear someone is trying to stop him getting to his destination, but Fen seems unconcerned, seemingly having forgotten his arrival. Before long, however, events take a more deadly turn, and Geoffrey and Fen are caught up in a murder investigation.
I thoroughly enjoyed this and found plenty of amusing episodes - the attack on Geoffrey in a department store, and the encounter with a suspect who has a pet raven were particularly memorable. Crispin uses a lot of literary humour, and many of his more dated references may now be lost on a modern audience, but I certainly enjoyed the ones I managed to recognise. He also pays a tongue-in-cheek homage to fellow GA writer Michael Innes (Crispin took his pseudonym from one of Innes’ books) as Fen keeps asking if Appleby of the Yard is on his way.
The plot is really convoluted, and the characters often hard to keep track of (particularly the various clergymen), and I would have preferred to have been able to make a few deductions of my own on my way through. It was good fun, but not a satisfying puzzle for me. So I would say 3.5*, more for the style and the humour than for the mystery itself.
Composer and organist Geoffrey Vintner is summoned by his friend Gervase Fen (Oxford don and amateur detective) to a small Devon cathedral town where the current organist has been viciously attacked. Geoffrey is alarmed when it becomes clear someone is trying to stop him getting to his destination, but Fen seems unconcerned, seemingly having forgotten his arrival. Before long, however, events take a more deadly turn, and Geoffrey and Fen are caught up in a murder investigation.
I thoroughly enjoyed this and found plenty of amusing episodes - the attack on Geoffrey in a department store, and the encounter with a suspect who has a pet raven were particularly memorable. Crispin uses a lot of literary humour, and many of his more dated references may now be lost on a modern audience, but I certainly enjoyed the ones I managed to recognise. He also pays a tongue-in-cheek homage to fellow GA writer Michael Innes (Crispin took his pseudonym from one of Innes’ books) as Fen keeps asking if Appleby of the Yard is on his way.
The plot is really convoluted, and the characters often hard to keep track of (particularly the various clergymen), and I would have preferred to have been able to make a few deductions of my own on my way through. It was good fun, but not a satisfying puzzle for me. So I would say 3.5*, more for the style and the humour than for the mystery itself.
August 28, 2012
Like Wodehouse, Edmund Crispin's novels seem so blissfully effortless that it is only on re-reading that the craft becomes apparent. I was thrilled to find this old friend on Audible and I have thoroughly enjoyed the performance given by the narrator. In Holy Disorders, Crispin uses comedy as the velvet glove to conceal the iron fist of the plot: it is 1939 after all, and everyone is keeping an eye out for enemy agents. But given that the Devon cathedral town is chiefly known for witchburning, perhaps something more eldritch is in play? The comedy is the chief attraction, though, it reaches heights of glorious silliness that only a well-educated mind can concoct. The scene where two amateur detectives are attempting to grill a suspect but keep quoting Poe at each other is a gem, as is Fen's response when asked the name of the knot he has proposed would allow a murderer to ascend a height and then climb back down and take his rope away with him. It is, says Fen, "called the hook, line and sinker, because that's what the reader will have to swallow". This isn't a book for people who demand a patina of Seriousness in their mysteries, but for people who love playful erudition it is a major treat.
July 12, 2011
This is my favorite of the Crispin novels. He is an outstanding writer and deserves to be better known than he is.
February 25, 2022
When Edmund Crispin is at his best, I love his fast-flying wit, literary references, and exuberantly improbable plots. Unfortunately, he’s not at his best in this book. There was a certain heaviness about it and a tendency to slide toward melodrama—not surprising considering that it was written during World War II, but less entertaining to read at this remove.
Oxford don and riotous eccentric Gervase Fen has abruptly summoned the slightly prissy organist Geoffrey Vintner down to a cathedral town on the Devon coast to fill in for the cathedral’s organist, who has been attacked and nearly killed. Geoffrey obeys the summons despite receiving a series of warnings and attempts on his health while making his way thither (though he inexplicably seems much safer once he arrives). There is a large cast of both sleuths and potential suspects, the motive for the attack and the threats is unknown, and Fen seems oddly indifferent to Geoffrey’s arrival, being preoccupied instead with insect collecting.
The story takes its time, which I wouldn’t have minded at all had Crispin been on form with his verbal theatrics, but as it was I was perfectly happy to put the book down and do other things from time to time. The characters are entertaining and the mystery suitably complex, but I figured out the chief villain well in advance. This was entertaining enough but not a breath-snatching favorite.
One thing I feel obligated to register an objection to: this book equates witchcraft with Devil-worship. Nothing could be further from the case.
Oxford don and riotous eccentric Gervase Fen has abruptly summoned the slightly prissy organist Geoffrey Vintner down to a cathedral town on the Devon coast to fill in for the cathedral’s organist, who has been attacked and nearly killed. Geoffrey obeys the summons despite receiving a series of warnings and attempts on his health while making his way thither (though he inexplicably seems much safer once he arrives). There is a large cast of both sleuths and potential suspects, the motive for the attack and the threats is unknown, and Fen seems oddly indifferent to Geoffrey’s arrival, being preoccupied instead with insect collecting.
The story takes its time, which I wouldn’t have minded at all had Crispin been on form with his verbal theatrics, but as it was I was perfectly happy to put the book down and do other things from time to time. The characters are entertaining and the mystery suitably complex, but I figured out the chief villain well in advance. This was entertaining enough but not a breath-snatching favorite.
One thing I feel obligated to register an objection to: this book equates witchcraft with Devil-worship. Nothing could be further from the case.
September 3, 2018
A masterclass in English and so wonderfully written. It does plod along a little at times and at others I found I needed a dictionary at hand, but a decent read of the country in wartime.
And a whodunnit which when arrives at the 'who' offers footnotes and references to the appropriate page for reminders. And it was certainly needed!
And a whodunnit which when arrives at the 'who' offers footnotes and references to the appropriate page for reminders. And it was certainly needed!
February 20, 2022
Me pasa siempre con Crispin. Empiezo el libro tratando de adivinar quién es el asesino y apenas pasadas unas páginas ya me interesan más sus divertidos y absurdos personajes, los paisajes ingleses en los que nos sumerge el autor y la cómica y extraña personalidad de su protagonista que en realidad nunca lo es.
Hay que reconocer que. a falta de leer uno de los libros que Crispin dedicó a Gervase Fen, La Juguetería errante es sin duda el mejor de todos, pero este volumen merece la pena ser leído con sus dosis de humor absurdo y sus delirantes personajes. Mataría por poder beber una pinta de cerveza en un viejo pub inglés con ellos.
Hay que reconocer que. a falta de leer uno de los libros que Crispin dedicó a Gervase Fen, La Juguetería errante es sin duda el mejor de todos, pero este volumen merece la pena ser leído con sus dosis de humor absurdo y sus delirantes personajes. Mataría por poder beber una pinta de cerveza en un viejo pub inglés con ellos.
February 2, 2022
I wasn't keen on the first book in this series The Case of the Gilded Fly but was hoping that the subsequent book, would be more to my liking. This started off well, and looked like it might be a fun read, but once Fen appeared, to me it just wasn't fun any longer. I don't like the way Vintner sees women (Either as money-diggers or sluts) but did accept that he felt like that in the first book. But Fen in this really annoyed me. He is forever telling people that he knows what is going on, but never tells anyone. He is very rude to people and I can't help thinking in real life, people would not stand for it. I realise that Crispin was an acholic, but think he must have had a good few snifters when he suddenly brings into the story, a maths lecturer from university, who had nothing to add to the story at all. Not even the maths, and certainly not anything comical.
Moan over. I did think the plot was well done, and had not any idea who was behind the murders. I will go on to read The Moving Toyshop as that is supposed to be the best of Crispin's work. Hopefully Fen will improve.
Moan over. I did think the plot was well done, and had not any idea who was behind the murders. I will go on to read The Moving Toyshop as that is supposed to be the best of Crispin's work. Hopefully Fen will improve.
December 7, 2021
World War II is underway, and the organist of the cathedral in a British town has gone mad. In this case, the choir has nothing to do with it.
Criminal doings appear to be afoot, and Gervase Fen, Oxford don and amateur detective, is on the case -- although he was really only in town on a search for interesting insects. He summons an acquaintance named Geoffrey Vintner to fill in for the organist and gets him hopelessly entangled in the sordid affair, which eventually includes two murders, numerous close calls, a spy ring, a black Mass and an angry assortment of insects set free at an opportune moment.
Fen is perhaps my favorite literary mystery solver. Like many of the British fictional detectives, he is eccentric, temperamental, brilliant, conceited and given to quirky pursuits. Like them, but better, particularly in the eccentric and quirky realms.
Edmund Crispin was the pen name for Bruce Montgomery, a British composer who wrote his mystery stories on the side. It's clear he didn't take the genre too seriously. His stories are more parody than straight-forward mystery writing, and they all contain a certain amount of slapstick.
"Holy Disorders," however, may be my least favorite of the Gervase Fen stories. Murder is a dark subject, of course, but this story takes a particularly dark turn. And although making sense isn't necessarily a hallmark of Crispin/Montgomery's mysteries, the nonsensical of "Holy Disorders" gets a little extreme.
Criminal doings appear to be afoot, and Gervase Fen, Oxford don and amateur detective, is on the case -- although he was really only in town on a search for interesting insects. He summons an acquaintance named Geoffrey Vintner to fill in for the organist and gets him hopelessly entangled in the sordid affair, which eventually includes two murders, numerous close calls, a spy ring, a black Mass and an angry assortment of insects set free at an opportune moment.
Fen is perhaps my favorite literary mystery solver. Like many of the British fictional detectives, he is eccentric, temperamental, brilliant, conceited and given to quirky pursuits. Like them, but better, particularly in the eccentric and quirky realms.
Edmund Crispin was the pen name for Bruce Montgomery, a British composer who wrote his mystery stories on the side. It's clear he didn't take the genre too seriously. His stories are more parody than straight-forward mystery writing, and they all contain a certain amount of slapstick.
"Holy Disorders," however, may be my least favorite of the Gervase Fen stories. Murder is a dark subject, of course, but this story takes a particularly dark turn. And although making sense isn't necessarily a hallmark of Crispin/Montgomery's mysteries, the nonsensical of "Holy Disorders" gets a little extreme.
January 21, 2019
The second Gervase Fen book and the second book of Crispin's that I've read. I've enjoyed them both. Gervase is on some sort of scientific trip to Tolnbridge, for some kind of investigation or experimentation on insects there. He sends an emergency message for help to his friend Geoffrey - he needs a butterfly net. Between the time that Geoffrey goes to the department store and arrives in Tolnbridge he has been attacked several times and meets a new friend, Fielding, who handily stepped in to defend and assist him. He decides he can go to Tolnbridge, too. This is all at the beginning - someone doesn't want him coming to Tolnbridge.
The bodies pile up and of course Gervase can't keep his big nose out of it. He has to investigate and get his friend from Scotland Yard involved.
I was totally lost in this one. Partly because I wasn't sure if the espionage in it was part of the case or a totally separate issue. Same with the witchcraft.
On to The Moving Toyshop.
The bodies pile up and of course Gervase can't keep his big nose out of it. He has to investigate and get his friend from Scotland Yard involved.
I was totally lost in this one. Partly because I wasn't sure if the espionage in it was part of the case or a totally separate issue. Same with the witchcraft.
On to The Moving Toyshop.
September 2, 2016
Poco a poco impedimenta nos sigue trayendo las aventuras del detective Gervase Fen; en este caso, no hay que llevarse engaños, estamos posiblemente en el peor de los casos publicados pero, aun así, sigue estando bastante por encima de la media habitual de novelas policíacas. Además resulta un poco atípico ya que la trama está más centrada en asuntos de espionaje que en temas detectivescos, de ahí que resulte más de aventuras que noir. En el caso de Crispin resulta un hándicap y no está tan bien acabada como otros misterios suyos.
November 21, 2009
Despite the title, this is a straight mystery with Crispin’s perfect ear for just the right word or phrase. I find his writing is like poetry, passages stick in my mind - “overzealous bee...dilatory swarm’ – to be rolled over my tongue at leisure.
“..his taxi burrowed its way through the traffic outside Waterloo Station like an overzealous bee barging to the front of a dilatory swarm.”
“..his taxi burrowed its way through the traffic outside Waterloo Station like an overzealous bee barging to the front of a dilatory swarm.”
February 24, 2023
Feb 2023 reread:
I had forgotten most of the details of this 2nd Fen mystery, making it a perfect choice for rereading! Fen, while still displaying some of the obnoxious characteristics that appeared in the 1st book, is more humorous and less annoying & the overall mystery is better crafted.
I had forgotten most of the details of this 2nd Fen mystery, making it a perfect choice for rereading! Fen, while still displaying some of the obnoxious characteristics that appeared in the 1st book, is more humorous and less annoying & the overall mystery is better crafted.
March 3, 2023
For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...
December 23, 2019
The extra star is given exclusively for the literary allusions; the Raven sequence especially is priceless.
Everything else about this book is absurd or even faintly revolting.
Everything else about this book is absurd or even faintly revolting.
April 21, 2020
Certain mysteries I would describe as intellectual mysteries. Edmund Crispin's books are in this category.
Gervase Fen is a great amateur detective but like the greatest, he is not always likable.
This mystery starts with Geoffrey a friend of Fen's and the one we follow through the story. He is attacked in a store trying to buy a butterfly net and Henry Fielding, not the writer, comes to his aid. I must confess Fielding is a great character and I wish the writer would have included more of him in the main plot. Anyway, once Geoffrey and Fielding arrive the story begins.
I don't wish to give the plot away and spoil anyone's first reading, so I will only say that the book is well-plotted and the guilty get their just dues.
Edmund Crispin was a great writer and I look forward to reading more tales in the Gervase Fen series.
Gervase Fen is a great amateur detective but like the greatest, he is not always likable.
This mystery starts with Geoffrey a friend of Fen's and the one we follow through the story. He is attacked in a store trying to buy a butterfly net and Henry Fielding, not the writer, comes to his aid. I must confess Fielding is a great character and I wish the writer would have included more of him in the main plot. Anyway, once Geoffrey and Fielding arrive the story begins.
I don't wish to give the plot away and spoil anyone's first reading, so I will only say that the book is well-plotted and the guilty get their just dues.
Edmund Crispin was a great writer and I look forward to reading more tales in the Gervase Fen series.
January 12, 2022
Reread in 2021, updated review here
I heard that Edmund Crispin was one of the Golden Age mystery writers and knew that I had to try at least one of his books. The only one the NLB has (that wasn’t an audiobook) was Holy Disorders. After reading it, I have to say it was fun, but a little confusing.
Holy Disorders starts when Geoffry Vinter (a composer) is summoned by his friend and amateur detective Gervase Fen to bring a butterfly net to Tolnbridge. On the way, he gets attacked three times and rescued by Henry Fielding (not the author) and the two make their way to Tolnbridge. What starts out as a case of bodily injury turns into one murder, then two, and Geoffry finds himself the reluctant assistant to an enthusiast Gervase.
This was definitely a fun book - all the characters are delightfully zany and the plot is over the top in a good way. There’s plenty to chuckle at, with the author even breaking the fourth wall in one joke.
The main two characters (Geoffrey and Gervase) are also endearing and I thought they made a good detective-assistant duo. Gervase is far too eccentric to stand on his own as a character, and Geoffrey provided a good counterbalance to him.
However, the book was also confusing. I suppose the jokes and many characters and plot twists all happened too quickly, and I lost track of what was going on a few times. To be more accurate, I forgot who a few of the minor characters were. This proved to be a problem because a couple of them were suspects in the case. But, I found that going back and rereading helped a lot and I did eventually get the plot.
Overall, I thought this was an entertaining book. Once I got all the characters in order, I really enjoyed the plot with all its twists and turns. Hopefully I can find another book of his to read (or perhaps I should give the audiobook a shot)
This review was first posted at Inside the mind of a Bibliophile
I heard that Edmund Crispin was one of the Golden Age mystery writers and knew that I had to try at least one of his books. The only one the NLB has (that wasn’t an audiobook) was Holy Disorders. After reading it, I have to say it was fun, but a little confusing.
Holy Disorders starts when Geoffry Vinter (a composer) is summoned by his friend and amateur detective Gervase Fen to bring a butterfly net to Tolnbridge. On the way, he gets attacked three times and rescued by Henry Fielding (not the author) and the two make their way to Tolnbridge. What starts out as a case of bodily injury turns into one murder, then two, and Geoffry finds himself the reluctant assistant to an enthusiast Gervase.
This was definitely a fun book - all the characters are delightfully zany and the plot is over the top in a good way. There’s plenty to chuckle at, with the author even breaking the fourth wall in one joke.
The main two characters (Geoffrey and Gervase) are also endearing and I thought they made a good detective-assistant duo. Gervase is far too eccentric to stand on his own as a character, and Geoffrey provided a good counterbalance to him.
However, the book was also confusing. I suppose the jokes and many characters and plot twists all happened too quickly, and I lost track of what was going on a few times. To be more accurate, I forgot who a few of the minor characters were. This proved to be a problem because a couple of them were suspects in the case. But, I found that going back and rereading helped a lot and I did eventually get the plot.
Overall, I thought this was an entertaining book. Once I got all the characters in order, I really enjoyed the plot with all its twists and turns. Hopefully I can find another book of his to read (or perhaps I should give the audiobook a shot)
This review was first posted at Inside the mind of a Bibliophile
February 25, 2019
If you are troubled by reading British English as opposed to American English, don't read this book. If you find the distance between the second decade of the 21st century and 1945 to create a difficulty in understanding, don't read this book. If you find a book laced heavily with quotations from Shakespeare, Virgil, Poe, Lewis Carroll, and numerous others (which are not placed within quotation marks), don't read this book. If you are made uncomfortable by reading the second book in a series without having read the first, don't read this book. If novels by Ngaio Marsh, or Dorothy L. Sayers, or Agatha Christie, or John Dickson Carr fail to hold your interest, don't read this book. In the world of murder mysteries, everyone is not who they appear to be. For example, the author of this book, Edmund Crispin is actually a composer of choral music named Bruce Montgomery (1921-1978). The apparent writer of murder mysteries is also the fellow who wrote the scores of numerous movies, some of them comedies, such as the "Carry On ..." series and "The Brides of Fu Manchu" (1966). "Holy Disorders" is a novel about murder, and witchcraft, and German Nazi spies, and toss ups between High Churchmen and Low Churchmen, and life in a small English village. It is a twist on the old locked-room murder mystery as it includes a locked-cathedral murder mystery. And it is quite funny. The thing about the humour is that one must be able to find it somewhere between America and England, somewhere between 1946 and today, somewhere amidst the literary references, somewhere in the classic English murder mystery form. If the reader is willing, there is much reward in this story about Gervase Fen, an Oxford don who is Professor of English, eccentric, quixotic and able to solve convoluted murders. Crispin/Montgomery wrote the first novel in the series ("The Case of the Gilded Fly") to win a bet. Glad he did.
July 11, 2016
¿Qué se puede decir de Edmund Crispin y su detective Gervaise Fen? Es como si Gerald Durrell y Agatha Christie hubieran tenido un hijo. Son novelas detectivescas entretenidísimas y divertidísimas.
Esta novela tiene probablemente el primer capítulo más divertido de todos los de la serie que he leído (siendo los otros "La juguetería errante" y "El misterio de la mosca dorada"), aunque también tiene una parte final que es más de tensión (con un poco de "thriller" incluso) y algo más oscura que las demás. Es una novela detectivesca en forma, aunque algo menos rígida que "La mosca dorada", sin llegar a ser tan suelta como "La juguetería errante".
El misterio es ingenioso y una vez te dan todas las respuestas, adviertes que en realidad todas las pistas estaban allí, y que yo (en este caso) no fui capaz de verlas. Eso me hace enfadarme conmigo misma, al tiempo que hace que mi estima por el libro crezca, porque tampoco engaña tanto. Algo sí, como siempre ocurre en esta clase de libros, pero no tanto.
Los diálogos son hilarantes, Gervaise es tan excéntrico como siempre, y las referencias literarias vuelan de un lado a otro como una bandada de estorninos. Es un libro ingenioso, entretenido, a veces incluso absorbente, y con personajes con mucho carisma.
A una novela detectivesca clásica de corte inglés no se le puede pedir más.
Esta novela tiene probablemente el primer capítulo más divertido de todos los de la serie que he leído (siendo los otros "La juguetería errante" y "El misterio de la mosca dorada"), aunque también tiene una parte final que es más de tensión (con un poco de "thriller" incluso) y algo más oscura que las demás. Es una novela detectivesca en forma, aunque algo menos rígida que "La mosca dorada", sin llegar a ser tan suelta como "La juguetería errante".
El misterio es ingenioso y una vez te dan todas las respuestas, adviertes que en realidad todas las pistas estaban allí, y que yo (en este caso) no fui capaz de verlas. Eso me hace enfadarme conmigo misma, al tiempo que hace que mi estima por el libro crezca, porque tampoco engaña tanto. Algo sí, como siempre ocurre en esta clase de libros, pero no tanto.
Los diálogos son hilarantes, Gervaise es tan excéntrico como siempre, y las referencias literarias vuelan de un lado a otro como una bandada de estorninos. Es un libro ingenioso, entretenido, a veces incluso absorbente, y con personajes con mucho carisma.
A una novela detectivesca clásica de corte inglés no se le puede pedir más.
May 30, 2013
A much smoother read than The Gilded Fly, Crispin's first mystery, with many fewer literary references to look up. This is partly because the references are more familiar (the ones to Poe's "The Raven" are quite funny) and partly because there are fewer of them. Keep that French dictionary at hand, though.
This time the story is set in the fictional Devon cathedral town of Tolnbridge. Things begin with an musician being summoned rather urgently by Professor Fen to fill in for the regular church organist. But the man is anonymously warned not to travel to Tolnbridge, and several attempts are made on his life before he can arrive. And once he does, more strange and unpleasant things ensue.
Gervase Fen, the Oxford professor of literature and amateur sleuth who is the crack detective of Crispin's mysteries, is as annoyingly self-centered and rude as ever this time out, but if one can ignore his obnoxious manners and enjoy the rather light tone of the book, a diverting read can be had. I was even able, to my amazement, to guess who one of the "bad guys" was (there are several) but I was still surprised at how everything came out at the end.
I'm hoping The Moving Toyshop, the next in the series, will be just as entertaining.
This time the story is set in the fictional Devon cathedral town of Tolnbridge. Things begin with an musician being summoned rather urgently by Professor Fen to fill in for the regular church organist. But the man is anonymously warned not to travel to Tolnbridge, and several attempts are made on his life before he can arrive. And once he does, more strange and unpleasant things ensue.
Gervase Fen, the Oxford professor of literature and amateur sleuth who is the crack detective of Crispin's mysteries, is as annoyingly self-centered and rude as ever this time out, but if one can ignore his obnoxious manners and enjoy the rather light tone of the book, a diverting read can be had. I was even able, to my amazement, to guess who one of the "bad guys" was (there are several) but I was still surprised at how everything came out at the end.
I'm hoping The Moving Toyshop, the next in the series, will be just as entertaining.
January 2, 2010
Holy Disorders has almost overtaken The Moving Toyshop as my favourite Edmund Crispin story. It has, of course, Crispin’s brilliant wit that can leave me gasping with laughter and a hapless young composer at the centre of the mayhem. But it is the setting makes this Golden Age murder mystery special.
Edmund Crispin (in real life Bruce Montgomery) was an organist at St. John's College, Oxford and a composer in his own right. His description of the organ in his fictional south coast cathedral town, and the cathedral staff, is breathtaking. Only somebody who was intimately familiar with that environment could have written this book.
In addition to the cathedral architecture and the associated clergy, we learn a good deal about the gruesome history of the town, and a get a close look at the sedate housewives who play at Satanism between shopping trips. Nobody but Edmund Crispin could pack so much comedy into a novel – and wrap it around a multi-threaded murder mystery.
Edmund Crispin (in real life Bruce Montgomery) was an organist at St. John's College, Oxford and a composer in his own right. His description of the organ in his fictional south coast cathedral town, and the cathedral staff, is breathtaking. Only somebody who was intimately familiar with that environment could have written this book.
In addition to the cathedral architecture and the associated clergy, we learn a good deal about the gruesome history of the town, and a get a close look at the sedate housewives who play at Satanism between shopping trips. Nobody but Edmund Crispin could pack so much comedy into a novel – and wrap it around a multi-threaded murder mystery.
July 3, 2019
The first 100 pages are really quite funny. We have a church organist and choral composer suddenly called to some minor Cathedral City where the organist appears to have gone mad. He then encounters a titled shop assistant who he manages to get sacked when trying to purchase a butterfly net. They set off together by train to find out what is going on. The incident in the Department Store and events in the carriage seem to indicate that somebody does not want the organist to live long enough to play at Evensong.
Though little quips continue, the sense of farce cannot continue once our pair arrives and bodies start to pile up. Humour has to be sacrificed at the expense of plot. What this means is that the book becomes much less fun when the Fen fist appears. He is a character that it is hard to love, but he is more present than he was in the first of the series.
Not all Mystery stories have as many jokes and are more in the vein of Wodehouse rather than Christie, as this one is.
Though little quips continue, the sense of farce cannot continue once our pair arrives and bodies start to pile up. Humour has to be sacrificed at the expense of plot. What this means is that the book becomes much less fun when the Fen fist appears. He is a character that it is hard to love, but he is more present than he was in the first of the series.
Not all Mystery stories have as many jokes and are more in the vein of Wodehouse rather than Christie, as this one is.
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