Sudden Vengeance [Textbook Binding]

Edmund Crispin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1950

Edmund Crispin was in fact a pseudonym for composer Bruce Montgomery, best known for writing the scores to the ?Carry On? films. The film on which Professor Gervase Fen has been hired to consult, though, is a biography of the poet Alexander Pope. But however high-minded the subject-matter, the actual process of making the movie is a grubby business, from the young actresses of dubious morality to the stogie-chomping cameramen, perpetually threatening to strike. And?to Fen?s evident delight?even the showbiz glamour can?t prevent murder from muscling its way onto the scene.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Textbook Binding
• Publisher: Dodd Mead (June 1950)
• ISBN-10: 9997497791
• ISBN-13: 978-9997497796
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,509,405 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Frequent hearses shall besiege your gates, October 28, 2001

By 

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

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sudden Vengeance (Textbook Binding)

"Sudden Vengeance (1950)" was originally published in England as "Frequent Hearses." Both titles are cribbed from "Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady" by Alexander Pope:

"On all the line a sudden vengeance waits, / And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates."

Expect that even the most vicious murderer in an Edmund Crispin mystery will quote Dryden or Shakespeare at the drop of a garrote. "Sudden Vengeance" is a fertile setting for this type of classical badinage, since its plot involves the making of a film based on the biography of Alexander Pope. Gervase Fen, Oxford don of English Language and Literature, and amateur detective extraordinaire is hired by the film company as a story consultant, and he is plagued throughout the book by a Scotland Yard detective who is an amateur classics scholar. Fen wants to discuss the murder. Chief Inspector Humbleby wants to talk about the Brontes and Dr. Johnson. Neither one will admit to a less than perfect understanding of either his profession or his hobby, and both despise amateurs. Their encounters keep "Sudden Vengeance" sparkling along right up until its final page. Here is a sample of dialogue, wherein Inspector Humbleby deliberately misunderstands Fen's explanation of the film's subject:

"Based," Fen reiterated irritably, "on the life of Pope."

"The Pope?"

"Pope."

"Now which Pope would that be, I wonder?" said Humbleby, with the air of one who tries to take an intelligent interest in what is going forward. "Pius, or Clement, or--"

Fen stared at him. "Alexander, of course."

"You mean"---Humbleby spoke with something of an effort---"you mean the Borgia?"

All of Crispin's characters are carefully (one might say `crisply') developed, and distinguished for the reader by a quirk or eccentric manner of speech (sometimes Crispin overplays the eccentricity at the expense of realism, especially with his main protagonist-- I do wish Fen would stop expostulating, "Oh, my fur and whiskers!"). Physical description is sketchy. If one of Crispin's characters walked past you in the street, you probably wouldn't recognize him. However, if you were to overhear his conversation with the postman---

And I don't mean to imply that "Sudden Vengeance" is all dialogue and no action. There is one especially harrowing scene where a young woman chases the murderer into a maze in order to learn his identity and then (when reason returns) can't find her way back out again. By the time Fen rescues her, she has endured an experience right out of an M.R. James horror story (in fact, the young woman quotes M.R. James at length while she is traversing the maze - a typical Crispin characteristic).

The mystery surrounding the murderer's identity and motivation is as cleverly convoluted as the maze, and it is equally as hard to get to its heart. Crispin himself wrote and published at least one film script and composed music for several films, so "Sudden Vengeance" is told with the knowledge of a movie industry insider.

If you like vintage British mysteries with a `classical education' and haven't yet discovered the `Professor Fen' novels, then you're in for a treat-- assuming you can find these out-of-print volumes. Here are all nine of the Fen mysteries plus two collections of short stories, in case you want to keep going:

"The Case of the Gilded Fly" ("Obsequies at Oxford"), 1944;
"Holy Disorders," 1945;
"The Moving Toyshop," 1946;
"Swan Song" ("Dead and Dumb"), 1947;
"Love Lies Bleeding," 1948;
"Buried for Pleasure," 1948;
"Frequent Hearses" ("Sudden Vengeance"), 1950;
"The Long Divorce," 1952;
"Beware of the Trains," 1953 (short stories);
"The Glimpses of the Moon," 1978;
"Fen Country," 1979 (short stories).

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Alternate title: "Frequent Hearses", September 22, 2005

By 

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

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sudden vengeance (A Red badge mystery) (Hardcover)

"Sudden Vengeance (1950)" was originally published in England as "Frequent Hearses." Both titles are cribbed from "Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady" by Alexander Pope:

"On all the line a sudden vengeance waits, / And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates."

Expect that even the most vicious murderer in an Edmund Crispin mystery will quote Dryden or Shakespeare at the drop of a garrote. "Sudden Vengeance" is a fertile setting for this type of classical badinage, since its plot involves the making of a film based on the biography of Alexander Pope. Gervase Fen, Oxford don of English Language and Literature, and amateur detective extraordinaire is hired by the film company as a story consultant, and he is plagued throughout the book by a Scotland Yard detective who is an amateur classics scholar. Fen wants to discuss the murder. Chief Inspector Humbleby wants to talk about the Brontes and Dr. Johnson. Neither one will admit to a less than perfect understanding of either his profession or his hobby, and both despise amateurs. Their encounters keep "Sudden Vengeance" sparkling along right up until its final page. Here is a sample of dialogue, wherein Inspector Humbleby deliberately misunderstands Fen's explanation of the film's subject:

"Based," Fen reiterated irritably, "on the life of Pope."

"The Pope?"

"Pope."

"Now which Pope would that be, I wonder?" said Humbleby, with the air of one who tries to take an intelligent interest in what is going forward. "Pius, or Clement, or--"

Fen stared at him. "Alexander, of course."

"You mean"---Humbleby spoke with something of an effort---"you mean the Borgia?"

All of Crispin's characters are carefully (one might say `crisply') developed, and distinguished for the reader by a quirk or eccentric manner of speech (sometimes Crispin overplays the eccentricity at the expense of realism, especially with his main protagonist-- I do wish Fen would stop expostulating, "Oh, my fur and whiskers!"). Physical description is sketchy. If one of Crispin's characters walked past you in the street, you probably wouldn't recognize him. However, if you were to overhear his conversation with the postman---

And I don't mean to imply that "Sudden Vengeance" is all dialogue and no action. There is one especially harrowing scene where a young woman chases the murderer into a maze in order to learn his identity and then (when reason returns) can't find her way back out again. By the time Fen rescues her, she has endured an experience right out of an M.R. James horror story (in fact, the young woman quotes M.R. James at length while she is traversing the maze - a typical Crispin characteristic).

The mystery surrounding the murderer's identity and motivation is as cleverly convoluted as the maze, and it is equally as hard to get to its heart. Crispin himself wrote and published at least one film script and composed music for several films, so "Sudden Vengeance" is told with the knowledge of a movie industry insider.

If you like vintage British mysteries with a 'classical education' and haven't yet discovered the Professor Fen novels, then you're in for a treat.

2.0 out of 5 stars A vapid dimestore mystery, January 28, 2012

By 

Anonymous "Anonymous" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sudden Vengeance: #7 Gervase Fen (Paperback)

I am giving this book two stars rather than one for the following sentence:

"Morose and mistrustful, Tuesday's dawn loitered in from the east like a trade unionist contemplating a strike."

Sure, it is one of the worst descriptions of a dawn that you will ever encounter, but it is at least memorable--unlike the plot, the characters, and everything else about this book. The characters are babbling idiots (and this includes the criminals, the innocent bystanders, and the investigators). They are indistinguishable from each other. A good middle half of the book is taken up by a tedious, never-ending "motives" conversation between the people who knew the deceased. The tone and style of the prose switches completely in the last section of the book, which made me suspect that perhaps Mrs. Crispin or the family butler stepped in to finish the narrative because the author walked into a paper bag and was unable to find his way out of it.

I am glad I have read this book because now I will know to avoid other works by this author.