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?

Author Biography

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.