It is October 1940 and at Oxford the Full Term has just begun. Robert Warner, up and coming playwright known for his experimental approach, has chosen an Oxford repertory theater for the premiere of his latest play, Metromania. Together with his cast he comes to Oxford to rehearse a week before the opening, but Warner's troupe is a motley group of actors among whom is the beautiful but promiscuously dangerous Yseut Haskell . She causes quite a stir with her plots, intrigues and love triangles. When she is found shot dead in the college room of a young man who is infatuated with her, everyone is puzzled and worried –most of the actors have had a reason to get rid of the femme fatale and few have alibis. The police are at loss for answers and are ready to proclaim the incident as suicide, but Gervase Fen, an Oxford don and professor of literature, who thrives off solving mysteries, is ready to help. The Case of the Gilded Fly, first published in 1944, is Edmund Crispin's debut novel and also the first Gervase Fen Mystery.

Theater companies are notorious hotbeds of intrigue, and few are more intriguing than the company currently in residence at Oxford University. Center-stage is the beautiful, malicious Yseut--a mediocre actress with a stellar talent for destroying men. Rounding out the cast are more than a few of her past and present conquests, and the women who love them. And watching from the wings is Professor Gervase Fen--scholar, wit, and fop extraordinaire--who would rather solve crimes than expound on English literature. When Yseut is murdered, Fen finally gets his wish. Gilded Fly, originally published in 1944, was both Fen's first outing and the debut of the pseudonymous Crispin (in reality, composer Bruce Montgomery), whom the New York Times once called the heir to John Dickson Car

When a poet, Richard Cadogan, receives an unexpected £50 advance from his publisher for his new poetry book, he decides to go to Oxford for a well deserved holiday. The change of scenery and peace of mind is what he needs to recover his inspiration for writing, but little he suspects that what he envisioned as a leisurely time spent on long walks and visiting friends will turn into a mystery solving adventure full of unexpected and dangerous twists. After an eventful train journey, Cadogan arrives in Oxford late at night only to realise that he has forgotten the exact address of his stay. Relying on a distant memory of the place he boarded in years ago he accidentally enters a toyshop where, to his surprise and fright, he finds the dead body of a women. Before he knows he is knocked out and spends his first night of the holidays locked in the backroom of the shop. When he finally recovers from the concussion the body is gone and the toyshop turned mysteriously into a grocery store, and Cadogan himself is accused of trespassing and stealing food. Luckily for the puzzled poet his old university friend, the professor of literature, Gervase Fen is there ready to plunge into the midst of this mystery. The Moving Toyshop, first published in 1946, is Edmund Crispin's most famous novel featuring eccentric amateur detective, Gervase Fen.

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY As inventive as Agatha Christie, as hilarious as P.G. Wodehouse – discover the delightful detective stories of Edmund Crispin. Crime fiction at its quirkiest and best. Holy Disorders takes Oxford don and part time detective Gervase Fen to the town of Tolnbridge, where he is happily bounding around with a butterfly net until the cathedral organist is murdered, giving Fen the chance to play sleuth. The man didn't have an enemy in the world, and even his music was inoffensive: could he have fallen foul of a nest of German spies or of the local coven of witches, ominously rumored to have been practicing since the 17th century? Tracking down the answer pleases Fen immensely - only the reader will have a better time. Erudite, eccentric and entirely delightful – Before Morse, Oxford’s murders were solved by Gervase Fen, the most unpredictable detective in classic crime fiction.

From a British mystery author known as “the master of the whodunnit,” an amateur detective delights in solving murders at an English boys’ school. Prof. Gervase Fen of Oxford University is honored to award the prizes at the Speech Day ceremonies at Castrevenford High School. As it turns out, the headmaster’s selection of the part-time sleuth as a presenter is most fortuitous indeed. For the night before the big event, two of the school’s staff members are murdered . . . Of course, Fen is happy to do some investigating, if only to get more fodder for the crime novel he’s writing. Between the kidnapping, the student romances, and the accidental discovery of a long-lost Shakespearian manuscript, the eccentric Oxford don certainly gets some food for thought. But that’s all in a day’s work for an amateur detective with a penchant for literary allusions and an uncanny knack for solving the unsolvable. Praise for the mysteries of Edmund Crispin “A marvellous comic sense.” —P. D. James, New York Times–bestselling author of the Inspector Adam Dalgliesh series “Master of fast-paced, tongue-in-cheek mystery novels, a blend of John Dickson Carr, Michael Innes, M.R. James, and the Marx Brothers.” —Anthony Boucher, author of the Fergus O’Breen series “An absolute must for devotees of cultivated crime fiction.” —Kirkus Reviews “One of the most literate mystery writers of the twentieth century.” —The Boston Globe “Beneath a formidable exterior he had unsuspected depths of frivolity.” —Philip Larkin, poet and author of A Girl in Winter “One of the last exponents of the classical English detective story.” —The Times (London)

Dandelions, hearing aids, a blood-stained cat, a Leonardo drawing and a corpse with an alibi... Just some of the unusual clues that Professor Gervase Fen and his friend Inspector Humbleby are confronted with in this sparkling collection of short mystery stories. Employing a skilful balance of ingenuity and humour, Crispin lays out all the clues. Can you solve the case before Professor Fen? First-published posthumously in 1979, Fen Country is Edmund Crispin's second collection of short stories.

A brainy, shy high school outcast interning at a Chicago hotel discovers that the hotel staff has an evil agenda planned for her classmates on prom night.