‘With varying vanities, from every part,
They shift the moving toyshop of their heart’
Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock
The above quote is also the ending of Edmund Crispin’s The Moving Toyshop. Thanks to Felony & Mayhem, I recently discovered the joy of reading Edmund Crispin’s series of mystery novels featuring Gervase Fen, Oxford Professor of English Language and Literature, and amateur sleuth. Fen often involves himself and those around him in ridiculous and dangerous situations. His life is often in peril; often by murderers, but also by his own awful driving in his beloved car “Lily Christine III”. All of the books are wonderful, but if pressed, I’d say The Moving Toyshop is my favorite (I’m in good company; P.D. James ranks it in her top 5 mysteries of all time).
Seeking shelter after arriving late at night in Oxford, the poet Richard Cadogan stumbles across the body of a dead woman in a toyshop. After fleeing the scene, he returns with the police the following morning, only to discover the toyshop is now a grocery store and there is no sign of the corpse. Cadogan joins forces with the eccentric Fen to solve the mystery, and the two alternately sneak and roar through Oxford determined to find a solution.
What sets The Moving Toyshop apart from other English ‘locked-room’ or ‘cozy’ mysteries are its inventiveness and sheer wit; Crispin cheerfully breaks the fourth wall, having Fen frequently referring to himself as the hero of a mystery novel, and suggesting titles for the novel in which he is appearing. There is an irrepressible humor behind almost every line: “Among the altos, hooting morosely like ships in a Channel fog – which is the way of altos the world over …” (Note: Crispin was actually Bruce Montgomery, a composer and music director and well-acquainted with singers.) With vanishing evidence, an impossible murder, literary references and games (“Unreadable Books” is played by Fen and Cadogan while locked away awaiting rescue), a frantic final chase involving half of Oxford, and genuine suspense, The Moving Toyshop has it all, and deserves its standing as one of the top mysteries of all time.
Julia, Managing Editor
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Let me introduce you to Sandro Cellini, a not-quite-voluntarily retired policeman reluctantly trying a midlife stab at becoming a private investigator in his native Florence. His diffidence almost causes him to miss his first client: a refined older woman whose husband, Claudio Gentileschi—an artist who has experienced some of the rigors endured by the Italian Jewish community during World War II—has just walked into the Arno River and is thus declared a suicide by the police. His widow just wants to know why, setting Cellini on a path that will entwine his investigation with that conducted by Iris March, a young English student, whose friend from art school has just gone missing. When the two investigators finally chance to meet, their collaboration allows them to solve the puzzle of the death of the old man and the disappearance of the young woman. The author leads us quickly to the finely wrought conclusion of the book, a conclusion made all the more dramatic by steadily growing bad weather as rain swells the Arno and it threatens to flood its banks, echoing the historic nightmare of the destructive flood in 1966.
The story is gripping, but the real pleasure of this book is twofold—the character of Florence itself and the character of Sandro Cellini and his wife Luisa: We are treated not to the Florence that the tourists see, but rather to a far more nuanced view into the locales and lives of ordinary Florentines. The author is spot-on in terms of both the geography of Florence and, more intriguingly, its sociology. The working poor are described sympathetically, although the author is somewhat more critical of the artistic poseurs and dubiously titled owners of threadbare palazzos broken up and rented to long-term visitors. And among those visitors is a sad cadre of young persons, exiled to art school in Florence by narcissistic and beleaguered parents. The character of Sandro Cellini is finely limned: He is a ruminator: melancholy, uxorious, and highly attuned to mortality—an existential hero, if you will. His wife Luisa is practical and steady, and although the word love is never said, it is palpable in every human detail of their marriage.
This novel is in the European realist tradition and, as such, has the slight timbre of a piece of music written in a minor key—pleasurable, but with a twist.
Justine, Proofreader
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Peter Dickinson’s King and Joker opens up on a scene of the British royal family eating breakfast, their dialogue at the table a startling, almost surreal mix of the cozy patter of a suburban family at home and the regal. Times are tough, and costs must be cut, and the cost-cutting measure currently under consideration is the cessation of “automatic supply of sealing-wax in guest bedroom,” a measure that the Queen strongly opposes. The Prince of Wales is a vegan, and Princess Louise, who will be our guide in this world, is about to start the school year in a comprehensive school where she will arrive accompanied by bodyguards.
Princess Louise is 13, and this book, in addition to being a fine mystery whose plot I won’t give away, is her coming-of-age story. The opening scene contrast between a “regular” family and their highly ritualized existence weighted by tradition and observed by multitudes is not terribly different from how it feels to be 13 just about anywhere. Her slyly funny voice as she observes her changing relationships with her parents and her nanny, Miss Durdon (a very interesting character in her own right) makes the story relatable and engaging.
Julia, Managing Editor
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