'Classic' Detective Stories you have enjoyed.

[antongould]

Just stumbled across a Crispin / Fen short story - Lacrimae Rerum - that incorporates a concert broadcast by the BBC in 1935 of Tchaikovsky 6 and Walton 1 and the Radio Times and of course an impossible murder.......

Without giving too much away I should perhaps mention the man murdered was a composer - who would ever want to do such a thing?

[salymap]

It's possible, of course, but Bruce Montgomery was a musician (organ scholar at St John's Oxford) and a composer of talent beyond the many film scores. Geoffrey Bush was a good friend (they shared a first public concert at the Wigmore Hall), as were Philip Larkin and Kingsley Amis, both of whom wrote about Bruce Montgomery (respectively in Jill and Memoirs). If you didn't know it before, Montgomery wrote the story, script and music for the film Raising the Wind (Kenneth Williams and crew) and appeared in the film, conducting Messiah.

t's a long time ago but I don't think I've heard of the Film 'Raising the Wind' and BM conducting it.

Geoffrey also thought he was the original Fen, but there have been many claims re. this. He certainly had that sort of nice dottiness. Ithink he and BM met at Oxford didn't they?

[amateur51]

Fans of the great detectives plus some more modern ones may be interested in this forthcoming series on BBC Radio 4

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mnz2j

[Pabmusic]

t's a long time ago but I don't think I've heard of the Film 'Raising the Wind' and BM conducting it.

Geoffrey also thought he was the original Fen, but there have been many claims re. this. He certainly had that sort of nice dottiness. Ithink he and BM met at Oxford didn't they?

Here's BM conducting Messiah (sorry about the watermark, but I'm not going to buy the programme just to capture this still!). I'm sure you're right about meeting at Oxford. What a talented group!



My favourite Crispins are the short story, We Know You're Busy Writing, But We Thought You Wouldn't Mind If We Dropped In For A Minute (in the collection Fen Country), and the novel The Glimpses Of The Moon (an unfashionable choice - the mystery's not much, but the comedy is wicked, and the English is exceptional).

The short story Who Killed Baker?, in Fen Country, is credited to "Edmund Crispin and Geoffery Bush".

[Pabmusic]

...The editor had the resounding name of William S Baring-Gould, I think he was the brother of the man who wrote the words to Land of Hope and Glory...

Rather belated, but I've only just noticed this. The poet of Land of Hope was Arthur Benson, brother of E C Benson of Mapp & Lucia and 'clerihews' fame. William Baring-Gould was a noted Holmes scholar, and a grandson of Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, who collected folk songs (Songs of the West was an important 19th-Century collection) and who wrote the words of many hymns - Onward, Christian Soldiers and Now The Day Is Over are two examples. He also had 15 children who survived.

[aeolium]

E C Benson of Mapp & Lucia and 'clerihews' fame

I think you mean E F ("Fred") Benson, Pabmusic (a pedant writes). He also wrote some very good ghost stories - perhaps a subject for another thread - and science fiction as well as the Mapp stories and biographies.

And isn't the clerihew the invention of E C Bentley - perhaps you were confusing the two?

[Pabmusic]

I think you mean E F ("Fred") Benson, Pabmusic (a pedant writes). He also wrote some very good ghost stories - perhaps a subject for another thread - and science fiction as well as the Mapp stories and biographies.

And isn't the clerihew the invention of E C Bentley - perhaps you were confusing the two?

Yes, you're right - complete confusion! It's E F Benson I mean.

[DracoM]

Michael Innes alias JIM Stewart - The Journeying Boy etc
Edmund Crispin - Moving Toyshop etc
Nicolas Freeling - Van der Valk novels

[salymap]

Does anyone think the print in very old Penguin paperbacks fades or is it my failing sight.? They look like pale grey print on porridge coloured paper to me.

Some are even labelled 'wartime print' but they are all difficult to see.

[vinteuil]

Does anyone think the print in very old Penguin paperbacks fades or is it my failing sight.? They look like pale grey print on porridge coloured paper to me.

Some are even labelled 'wartime print' but they are all difficult to see.

... old ( and even some recent... ) penguins are wretched: the acid content in the paper of many of my old penguins has made the pages yellow/orange, brittle, and friable - and the ink on those wartime and some later editions has deteriorated so that reading them is no longer a pleasure

And then those with so-called 'perfect bindings' ( a misnomer if ever there was one) - ie single pages stuck into a glued spine rather than folded and bound into proper folded and sewn sections - all too common in the 1970s and 1980s - well, the glue solidifies, becomes brittle, - and on opening the book all the pages fall out...

[salymap]

I was given six Crispins for Christmas [try saying that after a drink!} Coz said they were being remaindered or sold off by Vintage Books. I already have The Moving Toyshop and one other but the problem is, although they are in pristine condition the print is still to small for me to read them. A kind thought though

[Ferretfancy]

salymap

It would be nice to see television versions of the Crispin books, naturally they would have to be in period. Gervaise Fen would be just as popular a character as Poirot, provided that they found as good an actor as John Suchet. I can imagine him buzzing around Oxford in Lily Christine III

[vinteuil]

... has anyone mentioned the Max Carrados (the blind detective) stories by Ernest Bramah (of Kai Lung fame)?

well worth seeking out

[salymap]

salymap

It would be nice to see television versions of the Crispin books, naturally they would have to be in period. Gervaise Fen would be just as popular a character as Poirot, provided that they found as good an actor as John Suchet. I can imagine him buzzing around Oxford in Lily Christine III

Quite ferret, but they are quite subtle aren't they and I expect they would cut the jokes and dumb them down? It could work though.

[antongould]

Quite ferret, but they are quite subtle aren't they and I expect they would cut the jokes and dumb them down? It could work though.

We haven't had this debate for at least 2 years who could take the part? Or could have in the past?