Forgotten Book - The Case of the Gilded Fly

Yes, I know. It's pushing things to describe Edmund Crispin's The Case of the Gilded Fly as a Forgotten Book. But the Harper Collins Detective Story Club has reissued the novel, and it's good to see it featuring in this eclectic and attractively presented collection. And this edition benefits from an introduction by Doug Greene, who knows more about classic crime than almost anyone I know.

I first came across this novel as a teenager. I'd read and enjoyed The Moving Toyshop, so I borrowed this one from the public library next. Now at the age of 13 or so, I had never been to Oxford, and certainly no concept of what it was like - quite a disadvantage when reading Crispin. This story, like The Moving Toyshop, features an apparent impossibility, but is an apprentice work - Crispin wrote it when he was still an undergraduate at St John's College. And the first chapter introduces a large cast of characters, wittily yet a little clumsily. I have to say that the young Martin Edwards was a bit disappointed, and in fact I didn't finish it. Nor did I return to Crispin until some years had passed.

Now, of course, I appreciate Crispin much more than I did then. His wit and cleverness are strengths, though I think that in this novel, the intelligence is rather self-conscious, a sign of the author's inexperience. My adolescent judgement of the book was too harsh, And now that I love Oxford as Crispin did, I empathise with his portrayal of the city and its eccentric characters.

Especially for such a very young author, this is a well-contrived mystery, although it's still, in my opinion, clearly inferior to books such as The Moving Toyshop and Buried for Pleasure. Yseut, the victim, is suitably unpleasant, but Fen is also, as Crispin seems to acknowledge, pretty irritating too - especially when he makes clear that he knows whodunit early on, but declines to tell. I know Poirot did this time and again, but Fen doesn't carry it off quite as well, and the killer strikes again before the final unmasking.. A critic in The Indpendent even said in a review that he wished Fen, rather than Yseut, had been the victim! As for the murder motive, I'm afraid it' emerges from nowhere, really: not exactly fair play. For a Golden Age fan, Crispin is always worth reading, and there's a lot of pleasure to be had here from his humour and his evocation of Oxford. But for all its merits, it is an apprentice work..

Forgotten Book - Buried for Pleasure

Although I've chosen one of his novels for today's Forgotten Book, the happy truth is that Edmund Crispin has never been entirely forgotten as a crime writer. I was recently interviewed about Crispin by a magazine in Colombia, of all places. I was told that Crispin's name is no longer very familiar over there, but I think I'm right in saying that he's always had some admirers in the US. And certainly the recent reissue of several of his books in the UK has kindled further interest here.

In Buried for Pleasure, Gervase Fen rather rashly decides to stand for Parliament, and finds himself staying in a rickety inn in Sanford Angelorum, meeting an assortment of unlikely characters. These include a vicar who is plagued by a poltergeists, and although some of the scenes bear only a limited relation to the central mystery plot, they are never less than amusing and well-written.

Fen comes across an undercover police officer, investigating a questionable recent death - occasioned by consuming - guess what? - poisoned chocolates. Soon the police officer himself is murdered, and there is an obvious suspect. But we all know that obvious suspects are innocent, right? (Unless the author is Agatha Christie, that is, and she has a cunning double-bluff in mind).

I enjoyed this book. It's short and entertaining, and even if the murder mystery is flawed in some ways (I was irked that Fen's conversation with the deceased was censored so as to deprive us of vital information, but the whole story depended on this) it makes for a very good relaxing read - ideal for a holiday. The political stuff also is handled with a light touch. It's such a shame that Crispin's career was so short-lived. But he left a considerable literary legacy.