Looking Back: More Crispin

Edmund Crispin, the author of "Holy Disorders," wrote 9 novels and two collections of short stories featuring Oxford professor and eclectic detective Gervase Fen. Crispin was the pen name of Robert Bruce Montgomery, whose primary source of income was as a composer of movie music. Readers old enough to remember the old British movie comedies in the "Carry On" series will have heard Montgomery's music in those movies.

His books are witty, literate and very funny. The humor is frequently a very dark humor indeed, with laugh-out-loud scenes juxtaposed against some of the very real horrors in the books. Too many of his books remain out of print. At the moment, that includes his best-known work, "The Moving Toyshop," although I am hopeful that Felony & Mayhem Press, which has been republishing other Crispins, will get around to this one as well. For now, a number of Amazon's third-party sellers have copies, most of which are fairly expensive but there may be some decent prices at the link.

I have reviewed several Crispins on the podcast, and I will be doing more as we move forward. But if you want what I think is one of the best Crispins, let me recommend "Swan Song." It features the murder of an operatic baritone (and all-around nasty individual), and it combines a fine impossible-crime situation with some very funny backstage antics. Crispin's characters are eccentric, but also quite well drawn, with many sympathetic characters and some really unpleasant villains.