Frequent Hearses - Softcover

Crispin, Edmund

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140093559 ISBN 13: 9780140093551

Publisher: Penguin, 1987

Synopsis

Oxford don Gervase Fen is at the film studios to advise about a film biography of Alexander Pope, when he learns of Gloria's death. She appears to have little reason for wanting to kill herself. But when a cameraman is poisoned before his eyes, Fen finds himself involved in murder.

About this title

Review:

One of the undiscovered treasures of British crime fiction: Crispin's storytelling is intelligent, humane, surprising and rattling good fun -- A.L. Kennedy

About the Author:

Edmund Crispin (2 October 1921 - 15 September 1978) was the pseudonym of Robert Bruce Montgomery (usually credited as Bruce Montgomery), an English crime writer and composer. Montgomery wrote nine detective novels and two collections of short stories under the pseudonym Edmund Crispin (taken from a character in Michael Innes's Hamlet, Revenge!). The stories feature Oxford don Gervase Fen, who is a Professor of English at the university and a fellow of St Christopher's College, a fictional institution that Crispin locates next to St John's College. Fen is an eccentric, sometimes absent-minded, character reportedly based on the Oxford professor W. E. Moore. The whodunit novels have complex plots and fantastic, somewhat unbelievable solutions, including examples of the locked room mystery. They are written in a humorous, literary and sometimes farcical style and contain frequent references to English literature, poetry, and music. They are also among the few mystery novels to break the fourth wall occasionally and speak directly to the audience.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0140093559
• ISBN 13: 9780140093551
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224