Customer Reviews

The Case of the Gilded Fly (Classic Crime)

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Edmund Crispin (pseudonym for Bruce Montgomery) wrote "The Case of the Gilded Fly" in 1944 while he was still an undergraduate at St. John's College, Oxford. It features the advent of Gervase Fen, Professor of English Language and Literature, and amateur detective extraordinaire. Another of my favorite characters, the deaf and possibly senile Professor Wilkes also appears for the first time and tells a ghost story right before the first murder occurs. A story within a story. A mystery within a mystery.

Fen solves both the mystery of the Gilded Fly, and the mystery within the ghost story.

Crispin specialized in creating 'impossible' murders for his Oxford don to investigate. A murder usually acquires the label 'impossible' at the death scene, when someone blurts out, "No one could have gotten past the gate keeper (or into the locked room or through the sky light). This is impossible!"

In "The Case of the Gilded Fly," we have:

"...Accident practically impossible. And murder, apparently, quite impossible. So the only conclusion is---

"The only conclusion is," put in the Inspector, "that the thing never happened at all."

Now Fen is off and running! A whole troupe of actors and actresses had motives for killing their colleague, and all of them (of course) have alibis.

The story begins when playwright Robert Warner mounts his latest experimental drama at the Oxford Repertory Theatre. His previous play bombed in London and he wants to try out "Metromania" in the provinces before opening it on the West End. His current mistress accompanies him to Oxford, and he unwisely gives his former mistress a role in his new play. Both ladies have other admirers. Their admirers have admirers. In fact, it's hard to keep track of who loves whom without a score card---or in this case, a playbill.

Although its characters sometimes sound frivolous and superficial (and very funny), 'Gilded Fly' also concerns itself with the gap between outward, conventional appearances and the inner turmoil that triggered a murder. All of the suspects have valid, psychological reasons for wanting the victim to die, but Fen is skeptical about crimes committed for hate or love:

"I don't believe in the 'crime passionel,' particularly when the passion appears, as in this case, to be chiefly frustration. Money, vengeance, security: there are your plausible motives, and I shall look for one of them."

If you agree with Fen, then you will be able to eliminate ninety percent of the suspects. If you're like me, you'll keep blundering off after red herrings until All is Explained at novel's end. The author doesn't cheat---you'll get all of the clues ahead of the final denouement.

'Gilded Fly' is both a tightly constructed mystery and a literate, witty, British comedy of manners.

NOTE: "The Case of the Gilded Fly" was also published under the title, "Obsequies at Oxford."

It has been a long time since I first read The Case of the Gilded Fly and I'm really glad that I found some time to sit down and enjoy it again after all these years. That is one of the things I love so much about these old, classic mysteries. No matter how much time has passed the story always seems just as exciting as it was the first time around. Modern mystery writers could do themselves a huge favor by immersing themselves in writings of the 1930's, 40's and 50's.

Gervase Fen is an Oxford don who specializes in English literature but really wants to work on murder cases. His longtime friend, Sir Richard Freeman, Chief Constable of Oxford, really wanted to study and critique English literature. These two made wonderful counterpoints because they both wanted to concentrate most on the thing the other did for a living. These two characters are wonderfully written by Edmund Crispin. Mainly, for me, because we get to see the best of both professions but given to us from the point of view of the character we would not necessarily expect.

The book opens in a most clever way. All the characters make the railway journey from London to Oxford within days of each other. Each is described during the train trip in wonderful detail concerning their reasons for going to Oxford and the reader is thoroughly acquainted with the characters by the time they all arrive at their destination. Because of the abrasive nature of one character, it is pretty obvious who the murder victim will be but Crispin takes his time leading up to the murder. By the time it happens, you are very much in sympathy with whoever decided to do this person in and Fen's quandry about whether or not to prove the person guilty is rather easy to understand. Because, Fen does know immediately who the murderer is. I, on the other hand, was not so quick off the mark. I had someone else chosen and resolutely hung on to that person until the bitter end.

Crispin has the Gervase Fen character utilize his vast knowlege of English literature very extensively. Sometimes, it can be somewhat confusing to someone (such as myself) who has only a basic smattering of knowlege of the subject. Still, one of the references did prompt me to do a little research to seek out the quote and read it in its entirety. I must confess that I find myself still scratching my head to try to decide if I think the (first) murder could have taken place in just that way. Wow, what a marksman! and on the spur of the moment too! Also, the motive for the first murder seemed to be rather weak for my taste. I would have liked for a weightier matter to have been the catalyst from which this malevolence sprang.

I love these old mysteries. I think they contain huge doses of character and charm. I really like to set aside uninterrupted time to fully involve myself in the atmosphere of the story. If this sounds like something you enjoy also, then Edmund Crispin could be just the author you are looking for. If you've already met Fen, Mrs. Fen and the little Fen consider going back for another time to a world which probably never existed anyplace outside mystery fiction but which I sincerely wish I had inhabited, even if just for a short time.

This book is better than average because it is extremely well written. The word-smithing is exceptional and I even learned a few new words to add to my vocabulary. However, it is not one of my favorite books because the characters are limited in their range of expression. It's not that they're two-dimensional but rather you don't have a chance to get to know them better. Thus, the story seems a bit rushed. The plot is good, but the motive for murder should have been explored more fully and could have been presented in a more compelling manner. The motive for the murders was actually very unique and I wish that more time was spent fleshing it out.

I'm always scouting about for something a bit unusual for a mystery discussion group that I lead, and by that standard, I certainly found it in Edmund Crispin's THE CASE OF THE GILDED FLY. The blurb on the front of my copy (from the Boston Globe) describes the author as "one fo the most literate mystery writers of the century." I'll vouch for that: this one detective novel you might want to read with a copy of THE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE (or maybe ...WORLD LITERATURE) close at hand.

Since most of my group love anything British, I thought one of Crispin's Gevase Fen series would be a sure winner. Unfortunately for me, what the group really likes are "cozies," and Crispin's academic tone and setting (Oxford) is not quite that. Fen could be seen as being as eccentric as a Miss Marple, but not quite as endearing. His academic aloofness rather works against him (at least for contemporary American readers, I'll wager). He has the requisite charming wife, and she adds a dash of color--and warmth, but it's not quite enough.

Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe this is just the WRONG Gervase Fen novel to start with. This brief book has a ton of characters (and possible suspects), which CAN be all to the good if it keeps you guessing. But you really SHOULD get to know your hero pretty well in the course of a novel, and in this case, we don't. There are times when it seems that the main character is not amateur sleuth Fen, but earnest young journalist Nigel Blake. Fen really needs (and deserves) more "page time" here.

Fans of the series make the claim that Crispin specialized in "impossible" locked room murders, and while the room in this case the room the (first) victim is found in isn't actually locked, the murder does seem to be nigh on "impossible." And, ultimately, so is the solution. It's pretty clever, I'll admit, but pretty much impossible. AND the murderer would have to be super cool, super calculating AND an expert marksman. But to say anything more might be too much of a "spoiler," so I'll shut up now.

And despite all the caveats--and the fact that my book club did not like the book that much--I found, personally, that there was much to like about it. I enjoyed the evocation of 1940s British academic and theatrical life. And I was impressed by Crispin's obvious erudition. His is a unique voice in the history of detective novels, and one that I certainly would consider hearing from again. I may be alone among my mystery club members in even considering checking out more of the series, but maybe I'm just eccentric enough (if not "cozy" enough) to do just that.

I go through phases in my reading and presently it is English mysteries before 1950. I was vaguely aware of Edmund Crispin but had never read anythng by him before this. This is not a book that can be skimmed or read quickly. This story takes place at Oxford in 1940 in the beginning years of World War 11. Gervase Fen is an odd little man with a very sensible matter of fact wife who tends to balance him. Nturally there is a murder and the suspects are all either students or faculty at Oxford or have other reasons for being there. It is a well written story but a very slow read and I honestly don't know if I will read another of this author's books.

I bought this for my son, who is an Agatha Christie fan, and he loved it!

This is the first in his series and the first I have read. I had trouble identifying with Gervase Fen, as he seemed out of touch with reality at times, but he did solve the mystery. I will read another in the series to see if I like it better, but this one would not be my favorite. Comparing this to Campion in Margery Allingham books leaves me disappointed.

A wildly unpopular actress is murdered in Oxford. No one is especially sorry that Yseut Haskell is dead, and no one seems all that willing to track down her killer. Everyone is happy to profess their hatred of Yseut. Literature professor Gervase Fen knows immediately who the killer is, but that will stay under wraps until the end of the book. The mystery is a closed-room case. It seems like no one could have gotten into the room to shoot Yseut.

This is not necessarily a remarkably unique closed-room case. It relies heavily on the characters to carry it along. I rather enjoyed the university setting of the book. Fen is certainly not my favorite literary academic, but he's well-drawn enough to keep me entertained. I was less interested in the world of the theater. Actors can be very tiresome. I'm hoping that the later installments in this series dispense with the theater and focus on the university