Frequent Hearses

This book is late golden-age, and it's a good one. Crispin gives us a look at 50's British film and the people that worked in the industry. There are lots of surprises in store in this book. This is the first time I've read a book featuring criminologist Gervaise Fen. In this book an unexplained suicide of a young girl sets Fen and Inspector Humbleby on the trail of a particularly crafty murderer who is leaving enough bodies around to fill frequent hearses. This is an intelligently written book, and it certainly kept me turning pages. I enjoyed the setting (late 40's London) as well.

Edmund Crispin(Robert Montgomery) wrote a seriesof novels featuring Gervase Fen, amateur detective extrodinaire, whose full-time job was teaching classical literature to students at Oxford. Gervase always has the time to to be a "consultant" to the police force when murders occur. This time it is the murder of a series of individuals who had wronged a young lady to the point where she kills herself. In the process of solving the case, alolng with the classical-minded police chief, aptly named Humbleby, the reader is introduced to various eccengtric characters, very well-defined. Gervase makes classical allusions throughojut the novel, which are a delight. The book iks at once funny,literate, but also a mujrdr mystery. You will not guess the villain. TGhe book has a surprising ending, which you won't see coming. Mr. Crispin is similar to Agatha Christie in that he doesn't "pull any rabbits out of the hat"; the clues are there and if you can recognise them you'll solve he mystery. But, as with Ms. Christie you won't. This is a delightful book, which has as its 'set', so to speak the filming of a movie about Alexander Pope, of all people. Anyone knowledgeable about the life of Pope will see that the hilarity begins right there. A wonderful relief from the grisly novels of the likes of Patterson, P.D. James, and their elk. A good book to read in the country, outside under a fragrant tree, Finally,did you know that mazez aren't that difficult to get out of? Read this wonderful novel and you'll find out why.

Gervase Fen is a Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford and an amateur detective who is advising a film company about a movie being made in Long Fulton, near London. Inspector Humbleby of New Scotland Yard visits the movie location while investigating the suicide of a young actress, Gloria Scott, who has jumped off Waterloo Bridge. Although her stage name is known, Gloria's real identity is a mystery and someone removes all identity marks from the personal belongings in her room.Humbleby and Fen fall again into the easy working relationship they had begun during a previous case in 1947. FREQUENT HEARSES is an entertaining detective novel.

If I had to rank my favorite British mystery authors who produced their best work in the 1930s through the 1950s, my list would look like this:(1) Edmund Crispin a.k.a. Bruce Montgomery (2) Michael Innes a.k.a. John Innes Mackintosh Stewart (3) Dorothy Sayers (4) Margery Allingham (5) Michael Innes a.k.a. John Innes Mackintosh Stewart (with a drop in rank for his mysteries that went off the surreal deep-end).Out of my Fab Four Brits, Michael Innes and Edmund Crispin have the most in common. They were both of Scots-Irish background, both wrote their mysteries under pseudonyms while teaching at college, and both were educated at Oxford -- Oriel College and St. John's College, respectively. They both wrote highly literate mysteries with frequent allusions to the classics (nine out of ten of which go zooming right over my head). Michael Innes has his detective, Sir John Appleby poke fun at this high-brow type of murder fiction in "Death at the Chase":"That's why detective stories are of no interest to policemen. Their villains remain far too consistently cerebral." Expect that even the most vicious murderer in an Edmund Crispin mystery will quote Dryden or Shakespeare at the drop of a garrote. "Frequent Hearses" is a fertile setting for this type of classical badinage, since its plot involves the making of a film based on the biography of Alexander Pope. Gervase Fen, Oxford don of English Language and Literature, and amateur detective extraordinaire is hired by the film company as a story consultant, and he is plagued throughout the book by a Scotland Yard detective who is an amateur classics scholar. Fen wants to discuss the murder. Chief Inspector Humbleby wants to talk about the Brontes and Dr. Johnson. Neither man will admit to a less than perfect understanding of either his profession or his hobby, and both despise amateurs. Their encounters keep "Frequent Hearses" sparkling along right up until its final page. ...All of Crispin's characters are carefully (one might say 'crisply') developed, and distinguished for the reader by a quirk or eccentric manner of speech (sometimes Crispin overplays the eccentricity at the expense of realism, especially with his main protagonist-- I do wish Fen would stop expostulating, "Oh, my fur and whiskers!"). Physical description is sketchy. If one of Crispin's characters walked past you in the street, you probably wouldn't recognize him. However, if you were to overhear his conversation with the postman---And I don't mean to imply that "Frequent Hearses" is all dialogue and no action...The mystery surrounding the murderer's identity and motivation is as cleverly convoluted as the maze, and it is equally as hard to get to its heart. The author's red herrings are logically constructed and I always go snapping after them, even after a second or third reading... Crispin himself wrote and published at least one film script and composed music for several films, so "Frequent Hearses" is told with the kn