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    The Case of the Gilded Fly: A Gervase Fen Mystery
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    The Case of the Gilded Fly: A Gervase Fen Mystery
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    The Case of the Gilded Fly: A Gervase Fen Mystery
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Case of the Gilded Fly: A Gervase Fen Mystery

    Written by Edmund Crispin

    Narrated by Paul Panting

    3.5/5

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    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    The very first case for Oxford-based sleuth Gervase Fen, one of the last of the great Golden Age detectives. As inventive as Agatha Christie, as hilarious as P.G. Wodehouse, this is the perfect entry point to discover the delightful detective stories of Edmund Crispin – crime fiction at its quirkiest and best.

    A pretty but spiteful young actress with a talent for destroying men’s lives is found dead in a college room just yards from the office of the unconventional Oxford don Gervase Fen. Anyone who knew the girl would gladly have shot her, but can Fen discover who did shoot her, and why?

    Published during the Second World War, The Case of the Gilded Fly introduced English professor and would-be detective Gervase Fen, one of crime fiction’s most irrepressible and popular sleuths. A classic locked-room mystery filled with witty literary allusions, it was the debut of ‘a new writer who calls himself Edmund Crispin’ (in reality the choral and film composer Bruce Montgomery), later described by The Times as ‘One of the last exponents of the classical English detective story . . . elegant, literate, and funny.’

    This Detective Story Club classic is introduced by Douglas G. Greene, who reveals how Montgomery’s ambition to emulate John Dickson Carr resulted in a string of successful and distinctive Golden Age detective novels and an invitation from Carr himself to join the exclusive Detection Club.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJun 1, 2017
    ISBN9780008228026
    Unavailable
    The Case of the Gilded Fly: A Gervase Fen Mystery
    Author

    Edmund Crispin

    Robert Bruce Montgomery was born in Buckinghamshire in 1921, and was a golden age crime writer as well as a successful concert pianist and composer. Under the pseudonym Edmund Crispin, he wrote 9 detective novels and 42 short stories. In addition to his reputation as a leader in the field of mystery genre, he contributed to many periodicals and newspapers and edited sci–fi anthologies. After the golden years of the 1950s he retired from the limelight to Devonshire until his death in 1978.

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    Reviews for The Case of the Gilded Fly

    3.5/5

    260 ratings27 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Edmund Crispin's The Case of the Gilded Fly is his first Gervase Fen mystery and follows the relationships of a theater troupe recently arrived in Oxford to put on a new play by a celebrated playwright. When one of the actresses, the universally disliked Yseut Haskell, is found dead, the police are boggled. It looks like suicide, but things don't quite add up. And it seems that everyone in the troupe has a motive to kill Yseut. Enter Gervase Fen, Oxford don and amateur detective. Impatient, given to literary quotations, and eccentrically brilliant, Fen loves nothing more than a good murder to investigate.Overall, I'm not impressed with my first Crispin novel. The mystery itself is a bit farfetched, with too much coincidence and luck needed for the means of the murder. The gilded fly of the title turns out to be the most pointless clue ever; even as a red herring it flops. The obligatory romance doesn't have much to it and feels very obligatory indeed. The character of Fen is fun, I suppose, but he's no Lord Peter. And as for theater mysteries, Ngaio Marsh has that subgenre pretty well covered. It's hard to see what Crispin brings that is new or interesting.I will say that I enjoyed the writing itself. Crispin is certainly clever and there are oodles of literary allusions. I felt my vocabulary stretch as I read (sempiternal, anyone?). Despite my lack of enthusiasm for this particular title, I think I'll give Gervase Fen another try eventually and see if Crispin hones his plots in later books. Fen does have potential as an enjoyable character. But I have a feeling that Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter is much to be preferred.
    • 5/5
      Fen is fun
    • 4/5
      It took me 128 days to read this book.  I can't say exactly why, as I enjoy Crispin's work - what I've read of it so far - but I started this on October 6th, put it down after about 5 chapters, and didn't pick it up again until earlier this week.  Perhaps because it centres around the theater - a setting that doesn't do much for me at all - or maybe I just wasn't in the mood.This is the first Fen mystery, and I suspect that's part of what I found tedious, along with the setting.  I was also annoyed with Fen saying, at the half way mark, that he knew who the murderer was; as soon as he said that, all I could think was 'why do I have to read as many pages again before I find out?'  But I loved the way Crispin sort of did a Jasper Fforde with this book (and yes, I realise it's properly Jasper Fforde doing a Crispin with his Tuesday Next books, but go with it, please).  The characters all have an awareness that they are, in fact, fictional characters living within the confines of the story, and the small asides that let the reader in on this knowledge are often subtle, but they always made me smile when I came across them.  I've thoroughly enjoyed Crispin's sly humor in his other books and this one was no different, but I do think this might have made a better short story than a full-length novel.
    • 3/5
      A somewhat unsatisfying book, unpleasant people, unsympathetic victim and a lot of time spent wondering if the perpetrator should be brought to justice because the victim was so deserving of murder.
    • 5/5
      The first Gervase Fen mystery, murder in a theater company. Mrs. Fen appears, and apparently there are small Fens. None of these were in the #2 that I started with. Anyway, more wit and quotations and implausible motives and plot, but I enjoyed it very much. Many words and references I had to look up which added to the fun. The Fimble Fowl and the Quangle-Wangle!
    • 4/5
      There were two great competitions in Golden Age mysteries. The most eccentric detective, and the most wildly improbable explanation of the crime. Fen comes close to the top in the first, and this book comes close to winning the second. I rate John Dickson Carr the best, and Crispin second.
    • 3/5
      The resonance of The Pickwick Papers remains in its transgressions of form and style; it is a comic novel punctuated with ghost stories and finding its finest footing in a debtor's prison. Edmund Crispin achieves a similar success; this is a droll portrait of theatre folk during wartime; one which doesn't flinch nor shirk from low humor or dazzling erudition. I laughed freely and marveled at the elocution. I'm nerdy like that. People around here appear to lack that eloquence.

      The actual details of the crime to be solved were flighty and improbable. What if a locked room wasn't actually a room? That isn't a spoiler , but a nod to with weird wit at the core of the denouement. Another detail to savor is the amount of beer consumed before lunch in a rationed Oxford. Whither austerity?
    • 2/5
      This somewhat intellectual "locked room" mystery features a professor solving the murder of an actress with a bad reputation when it comes to men. The police believe it to be a case of suicide, but Gervase Fen makes a compelling case for why it is not. This tedious and boring book contains attempts at humor. The characters grated on my nerves, partly because I disliked the "theatrical" setting, and partly because of their unlikable natures. Even the professor himself fails to engage the reader. I kept plugging away at it, hoping the book would improve. In the end I wished I returned this one to my friend long ago unread.
    • 4/5
      Yseut Haskell may be a young and pretty actress, but she is also has a like for destroying men's lives. She is at Oxford, with a repertory company to perform a new play. She is up to her usual ways of disruption and creating ill feelings. When she is found shot dead in a college room by a gun that she had been waving around at a party the previous evening, it is no surprise that the list of suspects is long. The question is who is the most likely to have committed the crime. Seems more are glad to be relieved of her irritating presence than sad about her demise.Gervase Fen is an Oxford Professor of English Language and Literature, and an amateur detective on the side. For him, this is a great distraction from his usual duties. Nigel Blake, a former student of Fen's and who is now a journalist, is visiting the college. Blake serves as Watson to Fen's Holmes. With each character having a backstory that ties to their dislike of Yseut, Fen has to sift through that and the movements of the suspects to get rid of the chaff and find the guilty party. During the whole process, Fen keeps his solution to himself and keeps the reader guessing.The style of this book is similar to Sayers, Christie, Tey and Chesterton. The Golden Age of mysteries. A fun Brit read with many twists and turns. This is the first in the 10 book series. Interesting to note is that Crispin's background is similar to one of the characters! Oh, and Crispin is a pen name.
    • 2/5
      I disliked the characters, I disliked the excessive complication of following who was whom, and I particularly disliked the writing. Time and again the author tried to impress the reader with words which were long obsolete even in the 1940s. Cinereous, sempiternal, apostophised, minatory, whilom. All of these words, and others reached their peak usage in 1800 or before. How clever the author, how pompous.
    • 1/5
      The author's sexism intruded and I couldn't simply enjoy the story.
    • 3/5
      I am upgrading my rating from the 2* I gave this in September 2012 to 3*. One of the aspects of this book that I disliked was Fen's repeated remarks about knowing who did it. So annoying when the reader (in this case myself) can't figure it out! I had no recollection of the solution but did manage (based upon motive alone) to puzzle out who it must have been but without solving the how.
    • 2/5
      This is the first book in a series featuring Gervaise Fen, an Oxford professor back in the 1940's.
      A promiscuous actress dies with so many people that disliked her, it's hard to believe that she committed suicide, which is what the police are led to believe.
      Fen, of course, is the only one who realizes the truth and we are lead around from suspect to suspect, such that it's hard to keep track of people and alibis.
      By the end of the book, it was hard to keep up sympathy for Fen or for his playing with people nor for his reasoning for not revealing the truth. His eccentricities weren't really appealing, just annoying.
    • 4/5
      The Case of the Gilded Fly was first published in 1944 and the story is set in wartime Oxford. Author Edmund Crispin, real name “Robert Bruce Montgomery”, graduated from Oxford in 1943 and it is obvious his experience in that centre of learning was plied into the pages of this book.The character, “Gervase Fen”, is an Oxford don and is the amateur sleuth in this, the first of nine Gervase Fen mysteries written by Crispin.Rehearsal and performance of a new play provide the focus for the murder mystery and many colourful and intriguing actors, actresses and others associated with the play populate this novel.Overall I enjoyed the book and I believe it will entertain those who favour murder mysteries that include a bit of humour. I must, however, add a word of caution. Edmund Crispin was obviously a very knowledgeable chap and he wanted to let people know that he was a very knowledgeable chap. This manifested itself in several ways.Firstly, Gervase Fen considers himself to be intellectually superior to most people and is forever alluding to literary and musical works that I would suggest the majority of people would have to look up to appreciate the significance of the reference fully. I believe Crispin identified with this character.Secondly, Fen uses many words that will also require looking up in a dictionary; at least I had to look them up.Thirdly, and this was blatant teasing, there is a character named “Nigel” who is used as the reader’s eyes and ears into the mystery. Fen frequently turns to Nigel and jibes him for not having yet worked out who the murderer is. In this way Crispin is telling the reader that he is the smarter and that without his brilliance the poor dullard of a reader will never find out the solution to the mystery.Fourthly, as one would expect in a golden age murder mystery, the police inspector is portrayed as rather stupid and not a match for Fen’s obviously superior mind.Despite these elements of showing-off by Crispin the book is entertaining and there are many quotes that I have underlined and will reference time and again.I may not read all eleven Gervase Fen mysteries, but I will read one or two more.
    • 3/5
      Rating: 2.5* of fiveThe Book Description: 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 Yseult, 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 infinitely rather solve crimes than expound on English literature. When Yseult is murdered, Fen finally gets his wish. Though clear kin to Lord Peter Wimsey, Fen is a spectacular original--brilliant, eccentric and rude, much taken with himself and his splendid yellow raincoat, and given to quoting Lewis Carroll at inappropriate occasions. 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 Carr . . . and Groucho Marx.My Review: Tedious, fusty, and supercilious.Well, that about sums that up.
    • 4/5
      Where I got the book: purchased used through Amazon. Absolutely marvelous dreadful cover.Having had a few days to allow this murder mystery to percolate through my brain, I have come to the conclusion that the whole thing is a novel-length p*ss-take of the genre and that the author was laughing up his sleeve at the reader the whole time. Set in Oxford during World War II, the story revolves around a repertory theater group who are putting on--from scratch in one week--a play by a brilliant playwright who is also involved in the production. Bitchy actress Yseut makes trouble for everyone and practices her seductive wiles on as many men as possible, and gets her comeuppance via a bullet hole in the head. Is the ring on her finger (a gilded fly) a clue?We are introduced to the amateur detective Gervase Fen, a professor and literary critic who works out the crime in three minutes and spends the rest of the book dropping hints about how he knows what went on but he's not going to tell anyone until they've worked it out for themselves, neener neener neener. This, of course, allows time for another murder to take place, so Fen is in fact responsible for a death. In the meantime, the rest of the cast and crew get on with the show that must go on, nobody really caring a rat's *ss about the murder victim because she was a beyotch and a ho anyway. Which demonstrates that the author knew a lot about actors.Fen makes me think of the lead character in the brilliant BBC Sherlock, so irritating he's fascinating (I think the original Sherlock was supposed to be that way, but time has hallowed him). The supporting cast is fairly unmemorable, except for Mrs. Fen whom I adore utterly. The "official" detective--whose passion is for literary criticism--is an absolutely brilliant idea, but he's not rounded out well enough for me.Yep, I honestly think that everything I found annoying about this book was put there on purpose to annoy. I think Crispin was having his bit o' fun with us stupid readers. When he makes Fen say, mid-book, "In fact I'm the only literary critic turned detective in the whole of fiction", I think he's showing us right there that his intention is to subvert the murder mystery genre rather than add to it.The writing, on the other hand, was superb and often very funny. Crispin displays very little sympathy for the world he describes and the people in it; he's laughing AT everyone, I swear. This book may get a re-read just because. In the meanwhile, my feelings about a rating hover between a 3 (for being bloody annoying) and a 5 (for being a bloody good writer). Let's just call it a 4 and have done with it.
    • 3/5
      If you enjoy mid-century British murder mysteries, you should find this satisfying, for it contains all the prerequisite elements: a large cast of suspects (the cast & crew of an Oxford dramatic production); an unlikeable victim (a female actress/femme fatale); a "how could the murder possibly have happened" intellectual puzzle; lots of clues; a complicated timetable; and an eccentric detective - Gervase Fen, irrascable college English Lit don, in harness with a literature-loving Scotland Yard inspector. Crispin's a competent writer and a deft hand at irony.Unfortunately, the novel also includes many genre staples that date these novels and sometimes render them less accesssible/entertaining to modern audiences: little/no character development; a bewildering cast of characters (many of them with similar names, just to add to the confusion); lots of improbable coincidence; little action; and that hoariest of cliches, the "gather all the suspects in the living room and announce the murderer" denoument. As it happens, I'm a fan of the Golden Age of British mystery (viva la Agatha Christie!), but even so, had trouble warming up to this one. One major reason is the red herrings. I love a cunningly planted misdirection as well as the next gal, but the problem here is that the red herrings (sorry - can't list them without spoiling the ending) turn out not to be even peripherally related to the outcome; which still might be forgivable if only the red herrings weren't so much more entertaining and fraught with dramatic potential than the rather lame, unexceptional solution that is eventually provided! A second reason I think I had trouble warming to this was way Crispin basically "phones in" the character of Gervase Fen. In later books in the series, he develops into an intriguing and believable character; in this first outing, however, Crispin does little to make Fen's eccentricities either relevant or interesting. So there it is: though not without flaws, Gilded Fly is a creditable archetype of the genre, and you could certainly do a whole lot worse. (Cough - mysteries featuring cats, quilts, or recipes - cough!)
    • 3/5
      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
    • 4/5
      At first I didn’t think I was going to enjoy The Case of the Gilded Fly, I thought Edmund Crispin’s writing style was condescending and entirely too judgemental but, eventually I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and consider it as literate satire. I also found his amateur detective, Gervase Fen to be a rather annoying and pompous man, but, he also grew upon me until by the end of the book I was quite fond of the fellow. An eccentric professor of English literature who must be on the move at all times, he is witty, brilliant and rude.As Professor Fen and his wife are entertaining in their rooms at the college one evening, a gunshot rings out. An unpopular and scheming actress is lying dead in the rooms below. At first appearing like suicide, it quickly becomes apparent this was a murder. The case seems unsolvable to the police, but Gervase Fen proclaims to know who the murderer is but doesn’t wish to announce the name until he can tie all the pieces together.Reminiscent of an Agatha Christie novel, the main characters are introduced at the start of the book with their motivations and desires laid out. It should have been easy for me to put the pieces together and solve this puzzler, but I got so involved in the story that the ending was a surprise to me.An interesting book and one that I had to struggle with a bit, there were a lot of literary references that went completely above my head, but once I decided to relax into the read I found I enjoyed this book and I would definitely consider reading another of this author’s books.
    • 3/5
      I found this book to be slow moving and slightly annoying. I guessed who did the murder very early on although there were various red herrings sent to distract me.However, the real motive was not revealed until the very end and I found this to be unfair to the point of cheating.Overall I found the book disappointing and had to push myself to finish it. Sad, really ...
    • 3/5
      A book written in the 1940s which takes place in Oxford, this is a fun look at life and lifestyles then. It centers around the players as they prepare to perform a new play which is opening in Oxford rather than the West End. As a mystery, it satisfies with some witty humour throughout. I did not fall in love with any of the characters, but enjoyed the read and all the literary references, though I probably missed a lot of them.
    • 2/5
      Edmund Crispin's The Case of the Gilded Fly is his first Gervase Fen mystery and follows the relationships of a theater troupe recently arrived in Oxford to put on a new play by a celebrated playwright. When one of the actresses, the universally disliked Yseut Haskell, is found dead, the police are boggled. It looks like suicide, but things don't quite add up. And it seems that everyone in the troupe has a motive to kill Yseut. Enter Gervase Fen, Oxford don and amateur detective. Impatient, given to literary quotations, and eccentrically brilliant, Fen loves nothing more than a good murder to investigate.Overall, I'm not impressed with my first Crispin novel. The mystery itself is a bit farfetched, with too much coincidence and luck needed for the means of the murder. The gilded fly of the title turns out to be the most pointless clue ever; even as a red herring it flops. The obligatory romance doesn't have much to it and feels very obligatory indeed. The character of Fen is fun, I suppose, but he's no Lord Peter. And as for theater mysteries, Ngaio Marsh has that subgenre pretty well covered. It's hard to see what Crispin brings that is new or interesting.I will say that I enjoyed the writing itself. Crispin is certainly clever and there are oodles of literary allusions. I felt my vocabulary stretch as I read (sempiternal, anyone?). Despite my lack of enthusiasm for this particular title, I think I'll give Gervase Fen another try eventually and see if Crispin hones his plots in later books. Fen does have potential as an enjoyable character. But I have a feeling that Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter is much to be preferred.
    • 4/5
      This is an Oxford mystery where the University (despite both murders taking place in a College) takes something of a back seat to the Repertory Theatre. It is the sort of ‘intellectual’ murder mystery which I love, and I look forward to following Gervase Fen through future adventures. Unlike some other reviewers I enjoyed looking up a plethora of obscurev words in the Dictionary. ‘Whilom’ is now added to my vocabulary, and will be employed at the first appropriate opportunity. In one of those delightful link-clicking excursuses which are so easy with online dictionaries I also discovered jumentous (smelling like horse urine) and lateritious (brick red). Though neither appears in the book they might well have done! On the whole I found the characters rather two dimensional, and the Dramatis personae gratuitously provided in the first chapter was a constant source of reference to distinguish some of them. All the bibliographical information suggests this is the first Gervase Fen mystery, but the plot cleverly suggests otherwise. I was also puzzled by the copyright being vested in 1937 in J.I.M.Stewart (aka Michael Innes).
    • 2/5
      The beginning of the book was quite promising and I enjoyed the introduction of each of the many players in this story. However, this book was too clever by half. I would have enjoyed it more if I was much more familiar with classic English literature. I would venture to say that much of the books humor and meaning would be lost to someone whose day-to-day experience does not revolve around literature, such as an English professor or book reviewer.Intricate plots are par for the course, but this one was so complex that when the time came to reveal all, I scarcely cared who did it and just skimmed over the details. Having the brilliant detective determine the murderer almost immediately then chastise others for not having his superhuman intellect added to the frustration. I had hoped to find another good source of well-plotted mysteries, but I fear I shall not be trying another Crispin book.
    • 3/5
      This is the first book in the Gervase Fen mystery series and but is the third one I read. This was the weakest of the three but I found it entertaining enough to finish because I was already familiar with the main character and the way puzzles were presented. A minor character that appears in The Moving Toy Shop, Wilkes--a fellow don with Fen, also has a brief appearance here where he tells an Oxford ghost story which I thoroughly enjoyed. Over all this was an entertaining read, especially if you are fond of these types of mysteries, which I am. However I would not recommend this to be read first even though it is first in the series.
    • 4/5
      Amid the rehearsals of a new play by a noted playwright, an Oxford theatre company is thrown into turmoil by the antics of one of the actresses, the beautiful and amoral Yseut Haskell. When Yseut's body is discovered in an admirer's rooms, apparently having shot herself in the head, the general reaction is more relief than sorrow. Although Yseut doesn't seem the suicidal type, it is seemingly impossible for anyone to have entered the room and murdered her. Yet that's exactly what English professor and amateur detective Gervase Fen declares has happened.This would fall into the "locked room" category of mystery stories. I figured out (correctly) early on who the murderer must have been, but not the motive or the means. I enjoyed the lively and intelligent dialogue, although I sometimes felt it was over my head. Crispin's vocabulary is broader than mine, and it would have helped to have a dictionary close at hand, but stopping to look up an unfamiliar word on every other page would break the flow of the story. It's full of literary allusions, some that I recognized, and some I'm sure that I missed.Ngaio Marsh often used theatrical settings in her novels, and her readers might enjoy this mystery. Crispin's writing is definitely earthier than Marsh, Christie or Sayers, or at least more explicit. Recommended for all classic mystery lovers.
    • 1/5
      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 infinitely rather solve crimes than expound on English literature. When Yseut's murder touches off a series of killings, he more than gets his wish.A British lady I know on another forum recommended Crispin to me and this book in particular, when we were discussing witty novels. Ordinarily, I trust this gal's judgment on authors because we seem to have similar tastes. But this time, I have to say this book was a real oinker. While Fen is supposed to be "brilliant, eccentric, and rude, much taken with himself and his splendid yellow raincoat, and given to quoting Lewis Carroll at inappropriate occasions," I found this novel extremely hard to get interested in. It's written in the "old school" style of murder mysteries, but also obviously written by a man who is quite taken with his own verbosity. My eyes kept glazing over and it took me nearly two weeks to get all the way through! I'd have declared it a DNF and moved on, but I had promised this lady I'd read at least one of Crispin's mysteries. Ok, I've done that. The book gets a 1.