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The Glimpses of the Moon (Gervase Fen, #10)

Edmund Crispin

Start date: April 15, 2024

Finish date: June 5, 2024

Discussion: Buddy reads

Why we're reading this: The last novel in this classic crime series.
[close] The last novel in this classic crime series.

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What Members Thought

Jul 02, 2019 Shauna rated it liked it · review of another edition

Not nearly as good or funny as the earlier books. It is much darker and contains a lot of unpleasant racist and misogynistic references. Fen is not his usual ebullient self and leaves most of the detecting to the actual policemen.

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Aug 14, 2012 Leslie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mysteries

March 2020 reread: I had somehow forgotten how funny Crispin can be! Lots of chuckles while I was reading this.
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August 2017 reread: While not Crispin's best mystery, the humor and eccentric characters make this a fun book to read. I think that I enjoyed Fen's literary references much more in this reread as I am more familiar with the authors mentioned than I was 25 years ago when I first read this. ...more

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May 24, 2018 ShanDizzy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This Fen installment was published 24 years after Beware of Trains. While the murder was more gruesome, even macabre than previous mysteries involving Fen, Crispin has lost none of his wit and laugh-out-loud, uproariously humorous descriptions. Add in the absurd, wacky characters and situations...Crispin has created another fun read. The following absurdities made me literally guffaw:

If you took the Rector from the top downwards, the first thing you saw was iron-grey hair thatching a high, noble ...more

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Apr 10, 2024 Susan rated it it was ok · review of another edition

There are over 25 years before the publication of The Long Divorce (the previous Fen mystery) in 1951 and this in 1977 and it sadly shows. I have always enjoyed the series featuring Oxford don, Gervase Fen, but, having read this, I feel that Edmund Crispin, pen name of Robert Bruce Montgomery, should have stopped with the previous mystery. He died in 1978 so perhaps I must forgive him this aberration.

The author, a writer and a musician, has one of his characters in this mystery writing bad music ...more

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Mar 22, 2024 Jill rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: edmund-crispin

Another of what I call this author;s silly books. I understand he had something to do with the Carry On films , and where those famous actors could get away with the silliness, I find it doesn't work for me in book form. Crispin also shows his low opinion of females in this story, and he also seems to be obsessed with sex. This is the last of his books in this series.
I enjoyed some of his detective stories and think it is a shame that he stopped writing those straight-forward mysteries. ...more

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Jan 19, 2013 Damaskcat rated it really liked it

Gervase Fen is taking a sabbatical and staying in the cottage belonging some friends of his while he writes a book on the modern novel. The village had been the scene of a murder a few weeks before Fen’s arrival but for once he isn’t that interested in it until he starts to hear a bit more about it. Then he starts to wonder whether the right person has been convicted. Fen himself is carrying around a pig’s head from which he is going to make brawn which adds a certain surreal element to the stor Gervase Fen is taking a sabbatical and staying in the cottage belonging some friends of his while he writes a book on the modern novel. The village had been the scene of a murder a few weeks before Fen’s arrival but for once he isn’t that interested in it until he starts to hear a bit more about it. Then he starts to wonder whether the right person has been convicted. Fen himself is carrying around a pig’s head from which he is going to make brawn which adds a certain surreal element to the story.

During the village fete – which features a doubtfully genuine painting by Botticelli and the Rector doing the fortune telling – another murder is committed and the head of the victim removed in a disturbing reference to the earlier murder. The police are baffled and find themselves looking singularly stupid at times because of circumstances completely beyond their control. I found this book a bit too long and had some difficult reconciling the final solution with the story I’d read – though I could have missed some clues along the way.

What I did love was the way that the sack Fen is carrying runs like a red thread through the whole story. What made the book for me was the absolutely priceless scene which involves Fen and another character sitting in a tree, three hunt saboteurs, three members of the hunt, three people from the electricity generating board trying to work out why a pylon makes strange noises and a helicopter from the same organisation, not to speak of a herd of cows, a burglar disguised as a man from the electricity board and a collection of policemen who have just realised who they need to arrest and are rushing to do so. This scene together with the sack makes the whole of the book worthwhile in my opinion.

As ever the book is well written with many literary references and use of words which the average reader may find obscure. The characters are interesting and well-drawn and the asides about twentieth century novels are amusing. If you want a light read on which you do not have to concentrate too much then this may not be the book for you but in my opinion this is one Edmund Crispin’s best books.
...more

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May 11, 2024 Frances rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-series

The final novel in the Gervase Fen series, written many years after the original set, has many moments of hilarity and a great cast of characters, but the mystery itself is a bit bonkers. A couple of dismembered corpses with disappearing heads, a small village, an eccentric vicar, a bumbling police force, a hunting party, and some mad chase scenes all add to the sheer craziness of this last instalment.

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Apr 22, 2024 Sandy rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-detective-grp, rread-2024, own, mystery-classic, z2024-own-24

Much of the sparkle of the (much) earlier books is missing from the final book in the series, but then the author died the next year so he may not have been at his best. There is still a lot of humor and I always like Crispin's ignoring of the wall between author and reader (do you who know did it? Fen: no. you must, the book is almost over!). Fen leaves most of the investigating to the police in this book. He, like Crispin, has grown older. ...more

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