The Moving Toyshop - The Library of the Uncommons

208 pages

English language

Published June 30, 1977 by Penguin (Non-Classics).

ISBN:: 978-0-14-001315-3

(2 reviews)

Named by P.D. James as one of the best five mysteries of all time.

Richard Cadogan is at loose ends in Oxford, very late at night. Charmed by the window display of an old-fashioned toyshop, he is worried to find the door unlocked; surely the owner should be alerted. And so Cadogan slips into the darkened store and up the narrow stairway to the apartment above. But rather than a snoring toyman, he finds a very dead old lady, the marks of murder still livid on her neck. But when Cadogan returns with the coppers, the toyshop...has disappeared. This, it seems, is a matter for Gervase Fen.

19 editions

Christina reviewed The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin (Penguin classic crime)

Review of 'The Moving Toyshop' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I like my mysteries like I like my men: clever, funny, charming and up for chase scenes. Richard Cadogan, eminent poet, goes on holiday to Oxford, but finds himself without accommodations, so he enters an unlocked toyshop in the middle of the night, nearly trips over a dead body, gets a cosh on the head. Upon waking and aching he goes to the police to report a murder, but the corpse and the toyshop are seemingly gone.

Gervase Fen, friend of Cadogan, amateur detective, and Oxford Professor of English Language and Literature, takes on this seemingly impossible murder case while the police busy themselves with petty concerns and themes of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Benny Hill-style chases, fourth wall breaks, English Lit games and references keep Cadogan and Fen active inbetween witness interrogations and life-threatening situations.

Mel Anderson

rated it

Dec. 27, 2015