How acute are your powers of perception? Do they begin to match those of Gervase Fen, Oxford don and sleuth supreme?
First published in 1953, these sixteen short stories are classic examples of Fen's crime-solving prowess. A professor of English at Oxford by trade, he is also an eager amateur criminologist and this leads to him becoming involved in a whole host of compelling murder mysteries. His intuition uncovers the most insoluble clues whenever even the best brains in the police force are frankly baffled. These stories also allow you, the reader, to flex your own crime-solving muscles: each one contains all the clues needed to anticipate its outcome, using a delicate combination of logic and common sense... with a bit of ingenuity thrown in!
Do you dare to take them on?
I've read a couple of Gervaise Fen full length novels and enjoyed them quite a bit, but I think I might like the short stories even better.
That wonderful, dry English humor: check!
Well plotted mysteries: check!
Fair play plotting: check! (although as Crispin cites in his foreword, 4 of them require a bit of specialised knowledge that result in them not really being fair-play)
While the book is touted as a collection of Fen short stories, a few at the back did not involve Fen at all. One of these, The Evidence for the Crown, might have been my favorite simply because Crispin led me so elegantly through the story that I didn't see the obvious right in front of me. Conversely, it was also a non-Fen story that was my least favorite. The Golden Mean just was unsatisfying and felt incomplete.
There's just something about the style of story construction that reminds me of the Holmes short stories; Fen is no Holmes to be sure, but there's a similarity in the efficiency of the writing. Unless you can count the bantering sass between Fen and Humbleby as character development, these stories are wholly plot driven.
I have another collection of Crispin shorts and I'm really looking forward to them.
Reading updates
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Started reading
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1 April, 2019:
Finished reading
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1 April, 2019:
Reviewed