Scan barcode
bev_reads_mysteries's review against another edition
4.0
Edumund Crispin is wonderful. He deserves to be better known than he is.
pugnax's review
3.0
A posthumously published collection bringing together a series of Gervase Fen short stories originally printed in the London Evening Standard and Mystery Magazine.
At only 221 pages and 26 mysteries some of these certainly are short but the usual style and charm still comes through. Not the place to start on this series but a nice collection to round off the main adventures.
At only 221 pages and 26 mysteries some of these certainly are short but the usual style and charm still comes through. Not the place to start on this series but a nice collection to round off the main adventures.
smcleish's review
4.0
Originally published on my blog here in November 2000.
The description of Fen Country on its cover as twenty six detective stories featuring Gervase Fen is a slight exaggeration; only around half the stories are actually mysteries solved by Crispin's famous detective. They are generally, though, of high quality, and several of them are quite funny.
Writing a mystery in short story format is a difficult art. At novel length, the classic murder myster writer has space to introduce six or seven potential suspects, all with backgrounds making them suspicious and giving them motives for killing the victim, as well as clues to mislead the reader. Many novels have denouements which are longer than any of the stories in this collection. To fit enough into a short story for it to have any chance to compete is very difficult, and efforts by even some of the best known mystery authors just show how hard it is (the short stories of [a:Dorothy L. Sayers|8734|Dorothy L. Sayers|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1206564934p2/8734.jpg] are a case in point). The achievements of [a:Arthur Conan Doyle|2448|Arthur Conan Doyle|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1289836561p2/2448.jpg], who wrote so many classic short stories in the Sherlock Holmes canon, are shown in their correct perspective by this. And it is, thankfully, of the Sherlock Holmes stories that the reader of Fen Country is most consistently reminded.
Their structure is very similar, with the detective usually solving the crime by picking up some small detail - and here the puzzles are sufficiently difficult that I would defy the majority of readers to solve any of the mysteries even with this hint.
The most interesting story - not the best, because it is rather obvious - is We Know You're Busy Writing..., which is about the way that people assume that writing is not really work and how frustrating writers find this. The story is one of the amusing ones, and it is probably the most memorable.
The description of Fen Country on its cover as twenty six detective stories featuring Gervase Fen is a slight exaggeration; only around half the stories are actually mysteries solved by Crispin's famous detective. They are generally, though, of high quality, and several of them are quite funny.
Writing a mystery in short story format is a difficult art. At novel length, the classic murder myster writer has space to introduce six or seven potential suspects, all with backgrounds making them suspicious and giving them motives for killing the victim, as well as clues to mislead the reader. Many novels have denouements which are longer than any of the stories in this collection. To fit enough into a short story for it to have any chance to compete is very difficult, and efforts by even some of the best known mystery authors just show how hard it is (the short stories of [a:Dorothy L. Sayers|8734|Dorothy L. Sayers|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1206564934p2/8734.jpg] are a case in point). The achievements of [a:Arthur Conan Doyle|2448|Arthur Conan Doyle|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1289836561p2/2448.jpg], who wrote so many classic short stories in the Sherlock Holmes canon, are shown in their correct perspective by this. And it is, thankfully, of the Sherlock Holmes stories that the reader of Fen Country is most consistently reminded.
Their structure is very similar, with the detective usually solving the crime by picking up some small detail - and here the puzzles are sufficiently difficult that I would defy the majority of readers to solve any of the mysteries even with this hint.
The most interesting story - not the best, because it is rather obvious - is We Know You're Busy Writing..., which is about the way that people assume that writing is not really work and how frustrating writers find this. The story is one of the amusing ones, and it is probably the most memorable.
More...