Tue 28 Jul 2020
Archived Mystery Review: EDMUND CRISPIN – The Glimpses of the Moon.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[3] Comments
EDMUND CRISPIN – The Glimpses of the Moon. Gervase Fen #10 (including one collection). Gollancz, UK, hardcover, 1977. Walker, US, hardcover, 1978. Avon, US, reprint paperback; 1st printing August 1979. Felony & Mayhem, US, softcover, 2012
In a a recent issue of Fatal Kiss, my otherwise splendiferous contribution to DAPA-Em, I thoughtlessly mentioned in passing that I could not think of a mystery I had recently read that was funny to laugh at as well as fun to read. Almost immediately Charlotte MacLeod’s Professor Shandy books were pointed out to me. I’ve read only the first one, that being Rest You Merry, and I shouldn’t have forgotten it. The second, The Luck Runs Out, and it is near to top of my must-read pile.
But, Ms MacLeod’s efforts in the limited world of comedy detective fiction notwithstanding, I’m forced to say that The Glimpses of the Moon is absolutely the funniest detective story I’ve ever read.
Everyone in it is quite bonkers, you understand, and that’s the kind of humor it is. From Gobbo, the drooling local village idiot, on down. The arthritic Major, whose tone-deafness does nothing to inhabit his singing voice when it comes to the lyrical sensitivity of his favorite TV jingles. The innkeeper whose avocation it is to live abed three quarters or more of the day. And this only Chapter One, the tip of the iceberg.
Even Gervase Fen is only mildly astonished to find that the head of a pig he has carried around with him all day suddenly turns out to be the battered head of a corpse.
Or take Chapter Eleven, for example. It begins with Fen and the Major sitting together in an apple tree, the better to view the proceedings below, involving a herd of recalcitrant cows, a motorcycle scramble, several members of he local anti-hunt league, the rector and a thief, and … I guess you just have to read it to believe it.
The murders, for yes, there are some, are of a rather bizarre nature, involving not only decapitation, but a limb-proving as well. And there’s a “locked room†mystery to boot. How did the murderer get the missing arm out of the tent?
The motivation is perhaps a unique one. What else could it be in a wacky affair like this but rather unusual, to say the least?
(To be honest, if you were to force me to, I think Crispin lets the story run away with itself a little too often. Take P. G. Wodehouse, for example,to show us how such nuttiness can be kept under tight, tight control.)
Rating: B
July 28th, 2020 at 7:31 pm
Crispin’s books usually read like a mix between an Ealing Comedy, John Dickson Carr (impossible situations), and the Marx Brothers, and he almost always hits it dead on the nose with humor and mystery elements.
His earlier books are more controlled than this one, but then he was a notable composer, particularly of film scores, and a natural at themes, motifs, and hitting the right notes.
July 28th, 2020 at 8:06 pm
Well said, David.
I’ve read only a few of Crispin’s novels, but if you go back a short way on this blog, I have posted a review of one of his short stories. What it was, though, was just a hint of the flavor of books such as this one.
Strangely enough, what I remember most about it, which otherwise isn’t a whole lot, is the scene looking down from up the apple tree. I can still visualize it today.
August 8th, 2020 at 6:23 pm
[…] was talking about funny detective fiction a little while back. Standing and looking on from the sidelines, it’s obvious that it’s much easier to […]