From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

Love Lies Bleeding (Gervase Fen, #5)

Edmund Crispin

Start date: January 15, 2023

Finish date: February 6, 2023

Discussion: Buddy reads

Why we're reading this: Continuing our series of Edmund Crispin buddy reads
[close] Continuing our series of Edmund Crispin buddy reads

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Feb 23, 2020 Lady Clementina ffinch-ffarowmore rated it really liked it

Shelves: british, mystery, edmund-crispin, school, murder

The fifth of the Gervase Fen books by Crispin, this was the second of these that I’ve read. The book opens in Castrevenford school where preparations are on for speech day (and prize day etc), but lots it seems is going wrong. One of the girl students from the sister school, participating in the school play for the occasion is visibly upset, but no one knows why, and then she goes missing leaving an uncharacteristic note about running away; there has been a theft in the chemistry lab; and now th The fifth of the Gervase Fen books by Crispin, this was the second of these that I’ve read. The book opens in Castrevenford school where preparations are on for speech day (and prize day etc), but lots it seems is going wrong. One of the girl students from the sister school, participating in the school play for the occasion is visibly upset, but no one knows why, and then she goes missing leaving an uncharacteristic note about running away; there has been a theft in the chemistry lab; and now the night before the big day, not one but two of the teachers are found dead—shot—within a short time of each other. Luckily for the Headmaster, Dr Stanford, due to a last minute change in programme, he had invited his friend, Oxford Don Gervase Fen to deliver the speech. With his considerable experience on previous cases, and the fact that the local Superintendent Stagge is out of his depth and would welcome any assistance, Fen is involved in the matter right from the start.

This was an enjoyable read for me, a good combination of a fairly complicated mystery (in a sense) and humour—and I certainly enjoyed the writing a lot as well. The mystery as I said had plenty of elements, a kidnapping, theft, and murders (a third murder, apparently unconnected also occurs, and a second theft, from the armoury is also discovered), all of which are connected of course, and it is up to Fen to work out how. There are a number of people who could have done it, but in this one I felt, none really stood out throughout the book as having a strong enough motive (I mean as in a usual whodunit, one can narrow it down to a specific set of suspects—that didn’t happen for me here), it could have been any one of the characters around, though there was a clue about the person who turned out to have done it. But there were an assortment of them—masters, and some staff, including one who is the in-house gossip in a sense (Mr Etheredge), keeping his eye on all that goes on. There was also quite a bit of action in the plot too with a search for the missing girl, and more in a full-fledged car-chase at the end, reminiscent of movies.

The atmosphere of the school too I thought came through pretty well—activities (from exams and reports to various clubs and games), student love affairs, to teachers who get along and not with each other and the students (their approaches to their work, and the students etc)—one felt that one was amidst all the hustle and bustle and all the goings on. In the plot, one along with Fen keeps going between the activities of speech day (morning service, the speech, cricket, a garden party, and much more) and the investigations, with things having to be hushed up as much as possible since speech day must go on as usual.

There was also a fair bit of humour as mentioned, in for instance Fen writing his own detective story, which he keeps trying to tell Dr Stanford about, and the animals in the book. There is Mr Merrythought, a bloodhound with a tendency to ‘homicidal fits’ who seems to take a liking to Fen (Harold Bloom has described him as ‘a masterpiece of canine creation’), and who turns out to have a fairly strong role throughout the book. Fen and Mr Plumstead, another character who appears as the story moves on, also have an encounter with a ‘gross and evil smelling’ duck who has a ‘truculent gaze’, present at the site of the third murder. Both fun even if the duck had just a ‘guest appearance’. Other touches are there too including Crispin poking a bit of fun at his readers and may be himself—with Fen observing when told that he was recognised from his picture in the papers, that this was ‘more than Crispin’s readers manage to do’).

All in all, a great deal of fun. ...more

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Jan 01, 2023 Susan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

An outing with Gervase Fen is always fun. In this fifth in the series, Fen is invited to speech day at Castrevenford School. Of course, things will not go smoothly and a convoluted mystery involves a missing girl, murder and a bloodhound names Mr Merrythought...

This was something of a confusing mystery, as is always the way with this series, and the finale involved Gervase giving a rather long explanation. However, he is such a fun character, so exuberant and eccentric, that you know once you be ...more

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Jan 22, 2018 ShanDizzy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

At Castrevenford School, two people are murdered on the same day with the same caliber gun.

"...at two minutes past eleven, the telephone rang. Virginia Love's voice was so blurred with hysteria that he [the Headmaster of Castrevenford] hardly recognized it. He listened in stupefaction to what she had to tell him...He rang off, controlling himself with difficulty, and turned to
Galbraith..."It's Love," he said. "Shot." Galbraith looked bewildered..."Shot?...You don't mean killed?" "Yes. Killed."

T At Castrevenford School, two people are murdered on the same day with the same caliber gun.

"...at two minutes past eleven, the telephone rang. Virginia Love's voice was so blurred with hysteria that he [the Headmaster of Castrevenford] hardly recognized it. He listened in stupefaction to what she had to tell him...He rang off, controlling himself with difficulty, and turned to
Galbraith..."It's Love," he said. "Shot." Galbraith looked bewildered..."Shot?...You don't mean killed?" "Yes. Killed."

The telephone rang again. The Headmaster took it up; listened, incredulous and appalled. "All right," he said at last. "Stay there, and don't touch anything. I'll make the necessary arrangements." He replaced the receiver. "That was Wells, speaking from Hubbard's Building. He's just found Somers in the Common Room..."Somers is dead, too," he said. "Shot through the eye."

"Tell me about them" [Fen] said. "Character, history, personal ties - that sort of thing."
"As far as I can." The Headmaster resumed his pacing. "Love, I think, was the more interesting of the two. He...taught...classics and history. Competent, methodical - a satisfactory man in most ways...he wasn't the sort of person who invites affection...Duty was his lodestar. It would be wrong to say that he disapproved of pleasure, but he was inclined to regard it as a necessary medicine to be taken at specified times, in specified doses."
"A man whom there were none to praise and very few to love," Fen remarked sadly..."What about his private life?" "Was he married?"
"Yes. His wife's a wispy, mousy little woman; all the character rubbed out of her, I suspect, by years of ministering to him." Later on, Love is described by the doctor as 'domineering in an insidious, underhand sort of way.'

"...Somers. Yes. Quite a young man. Educated at Merfield. "Love thought the world of him...Somers taught English...clever, and a shade conceited. Not popular. He came here a year ago, from the Army...not married...parents dead, no brothers or sisters. As to his friends, I don't believe he was intimate with anyone here.

Who killed these two? Why? Fen will find out in his usual persistent, sardonic way and I'll enjoy the ride.

How interesting that Crispin included the personal name of God as stated in the Bible in this story - "They stood petrified at their Headmistress's apocalyptic entry, like those Cornish maids whom the wrath of Jehovah transmogrified in granite for dancing naked on the Sabbath Day."

And there is a dog with issues whose name is Mr. Merrythought. (That cracks me up!) "The dog was a large, forbidding bloodhound, on whose aboriginal colour and shape one or two other breeds had been more or less successfully superimposed. He stood just inside the doorway, unnervingly immobile, and fixed Fen with a malevolent and hypnotic stare...."This," said the Headmaster, "is Mr. Merrythought...He's rather old"..."Is he" - Fen spoke with great caution, rather as Balaam's ass must have spoken after perceiving the surprise and alarm created by his first attempt - "is he yours?" "He isn't anybody's, really. He belonged to a master who died, and now he just wanders about the site," said the Headmaster. "The trouble is, you see, that he's liable to homicidal fits...They happen about once every three months. As a matter of fact, there's one due about now." ...more

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Feb 21, 2023 Frances rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-series

This is a solidly good series with a quirky Oxford academic as sleuth and, in this outing, a public boys' school as the location for the murder. Crispin crafts a clever and well-plotted mystery but doesn't seem very skilled at either laying it out or revealing the solution, so the beginning and end feel particularly clunky and contrived. However for fans of Golden Age mysteries and those who enjoy a good academic puzzle, this is worth the read. ...more

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Sep 29, 2018 Gardener0126 rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is a delightful classic British mystery. The protagonist, Gervase Fen is an English professor with more intuition and deductive powers than your average professor. Fen, however, is most definitely not your average professor. He is literate, clever and amusing, and as a character, he stands head and shoulders above most other characters in the world of detective fiction.

Crispin's writing is full of unusual words, literary references and tongue in cheek humor. This book is much better than yo ...more

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