The Moving Toyshop (Classic Crime) [Mass Market Paperback]

Edmund Crispin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1992 | Series: Classic Crime

It is late at night when poet Cadogan stumbles on the dead body of an old lady in an Oxford toyshop. The following morning, the toyshop has vanished and in its place is a grocery store. Nobody, not even the police, seem surprised.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A master of the whodunit — he combines a flawless plot, witty dialogue, and a touch of hilarity.”
–New York Times --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Edmund Crispin was the pseudonym of Bruce Montgomery, an English crime writer and composer. He graduated from St John's College, Oxford, in 1943, with a BA in modern languages, having for two years been its organist and choirmaster. From 1943 to 1945 he taught at Shrewsbury School and in 1944 published the first of nine Gervase Fen novels, The Case of the Gilded Fly. He became a well respected reviewer of crime, writing for the Sunday Times from 1967 until his death in 1978. He also composed the music for many of the Carry On films. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (October 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140088172
• ISBN-13: 978-0140088175
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #950,723 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars They don't write them like they used to, April 14, 2000

By 

Avid Reader (Franklin, Tn) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Moving Toyshop (Classic Crime) (Mass Market Paperback)

I found nine Edumund Crispin novels bundled three to a book and bought all three (nine mysteries). To say "well-written" is an understatement. They are witty, clever, surprising and best of all, entertaining. These thick tales hail from a time when ideas propelled a story - no bad language, vivid sex scenes, inordiante violence. They are works of beautiful, well-written prose [by a church organist yet!] If you like academic settings (think of Dorothy Sayers) you will love Crispin's stores

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "a thousand, thousand Limey things lived on and so did I.", May 10, 2001

By 

E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Moving Toyshop (Classic Crime) (Mass Market Paperback)

The critic Anthony Boucher once described the British writer and composer, Edmund Crispin (pseudonym for Robert Bruce Montgomery) as a "master of fast-paced, tongue-in-cheek mystery novels, a blend of John Dickson Carr, Michael Innes, M.R. James, and the Marx Brothers."

"The Moving Toyshop," published in 1946, was Crispin's third Gervase Fen mystery. This particular whodunit involves an unusual will, a hunt for five eccentric characters named after the nonsense poems of Edward Lear, and of course, a moving toy shop with a corpse in its upper story. The action begins in the Autumn of 1938, when the poet, Richard Cadogan wangles an advance from his London publisher and sets out for a vacation in Oxford.

The reader begins to realize the oddity of the journey he has embarked upon with the poet, when Cadogan hitches a ride with truck driver who quotes Coleridge ("a thahsand, thahsand slimy things lived on and so did I.") but prefers D.H. Lawrence's "Lady Somebody's Lover."

We're entering Fen Country now, where even the truck drivers and police detectives are amateur literary critics, and our detective, Gervase Fen is the Oxford don of English Language and Literature. Dialogue fizzes with cynical witticisms and literary allusions when Fen and the poet, Cadogan go at it, or when Fen takes on any of a number of amateur classicists who populate "The Moving Toyshop."

All of Crispin's Fen mysteries can be read with pleasure for the dialogue alone. This particular book also has a full cast of British eccentrics, including the five Edward Lear characters (one of whom is a murderer).

Here is your first limerick-clue:

"There was an Old Person of Mold who shrank from sensations of Cold; so he purchased some muffs, some furs, and some fluffs, and wrapped himself up from the cold."

Racket through the streets (and sometimes the lawns) of Oxford in Fen's battered, red roadster, Lily Christine III! Make up limericks and shout them out to passing scholars! Join the hunt for the missing toyshop, the corpse, and the murderer! You will enjoy a sometimes farcical, always exhilarating ride.

"The Moving Toyshop" is Crispin on his own home turf (he was educated at St. John's College, Oxford), and at the top of his classical form.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic from the Golden Age of mystery fiction, June 13, 2004

By 

Celia Redmore "Celia Redmore" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Moving Toyshop (Classic Crime) (Mass Market Paperback)

The Moving Toyshop takes the classic puzzle of the locked room and turns it inside out. A struggling poet, defeated one stormy night by British Railway's unfathomable time-tables, takes shelter in an old toyshop, only to stumble upon the body of a woman inside. But when he returns there with the police, the toyshop has gone and in its place is a grocery shop. It sounds like a story from Ray Bradbury, but this mystery is caused by very common human greed.

Edmund Crispin was the pen-name of composer Bruce Montgomery. British movie fans will recognize his name as the creator of the music for the Carry On comedy series. Crispin is one of the mystery writers from the Golden Age of mystery fiction between the wars whose works have stood the test of time. It's a pity that so many of them are currently out of print.

Where American writers specialized in hard-boiled detectives, like Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe and Dashiel Hammett's Sam Spade, the British fiction of the period preferred its heroes to be languid, educated and world-weary. It goes without saying that they spoke several languages, including French and Latin, were familiar with classical music and literature, and hedonistically fond of cigarettes, whisky and good port.

The Moving Toyshop has remained a favourite of classical mystery fiction fans, because it incorporates all of the best features of its genre. The amateur detective is Gervase Fen, a disarmingly eccentric professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford University. The narrator in this story is a querulous, but biddable poet, a cross between Conan Doyle's Dr Watson and Douglas Adams' Arthur Dent. The conversations concern bad literature and Oxford dons, and usually take place in a comfortable Oxford pub. And the villains escape on bicycles.