Glimpses of the Moon: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Final full-length Fen
Review: "The Glimpses of the Moon" (1978) was published twenty-six years after Crispin's penultimate Fen novel, "The Long Divorce" (1952). It is sandwiched between two collections of short stories: "Beware of the Trains" (1953) and "Fen Country" (1979- published posthumously.)

In this novel, Professor Fen is on sabbatical in the Devon countryside. He is house-sitting for a couple of friends, writing a book that critiques the post-modern novel (this is funnier than it sounds), and pre-masticating pansy petals for his friends' finicky, gourmand tortoise. Since this is another of Crispin's fine pastorals, there are also a variety of pigs (living and dead), cows, a sex-crazed tomcat, a narcoleptic horse, and a cocker spaniel that plays a minor role in the murder mystery.

In fact the mystery of who killed whom is almost buried under the goings-on of the livestock, the rural electric board, and the church fete. Fen concerns himself not so much with the identity of the murderer, as he does with the identity of the person who kept sneaking into a tent at the rector's annual fete and cutting bits off of the concealed corpse.

One might even classify "The Glimpses of the Moon" as a 'locked tent' mystery.

Fen seems to have lost a great deal of energy since "The Long Divorce," twenty-six years past. He does not detect so much as get detected upon by his friends, the Rector, the Major, and the Horror-film Composer. There are huge digressions that are interesting, but have nothing to do with the plot. For instance, the bumblings of the South Western Electricity Board (Sweb) and the fox-hunt protesters get more page time than the murders. There is also a great deal of satirical commentary on the "over-developed sensibilities of under-developed nations" by a foreign correspondent who is rusticating in Devon, after getting kicked out of yet another African country (some readers might find this offensive).

However, a Fen is a Fen and this is his last novel. First-time readers might want to begin at the beginning of the series with "The Case of the Gilded Fly." My own favorite Fen is "Love Lies Bleeding," followed very closely by "The Long Divorce." "The Moving Toyshop" is the most-published of Crispin's mysteries, and probably the easiest to locate. And don't neglect "Frequent Hearses," which features a maze scene that is frighteningly reminiscent of M.R. James (in fact the woman who is lost in the maze quotes M.R. James at length---a very Crispian characteristic.)

Crispin's short stories featuring his remarkable detective-professor were originally published in a newspaper, to be read (and solved) on the train home from work. They are fiendishly clever intellectual exercises but lack the depth of characterization and the sparkling, erudite conversation of his novels.

Rating:
Summary: A mystery for those who like conundrum and wit of high order
Review: My favorite mystery ever. At times, the author's sense of humor and cynicism just makes me laugh out loud. Gervase Fen is surely one of the more noxious, but lovable, detectives in the literature, and Crispin writes with a sure, erudite hand.