When an opera company gathers in Oxford for the first post-war production of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger its happiness is soon soured by the discovery that the unpleasant Edwin Shorthouse will be singing a leading role. Nearly everyone involved has reason to loathe Shorthouse but who amongst them has the fiendish ingenuity to kill him in his own locked dressing room?
Gervase Fen steps in to unravel two murders, cope with the unpredictability of the artistic temperament, and attempt to encourage the course of true love.
Reviewed by Julie Welch in Slightly Foxed Issue 63.
Lost in the Fens
JULIE WELCH
Should you really never judge a book by its cover? Had I gone along with that dictum years ago I would not have happened upon Edmund Crispin. Shameful though it is to admit it, I was attracted not by the name of the author – unknown to me – but by a Penguin Crime jacket. Its green and cream design caught my eye at an Amnesty International book sale in the church opposite our house. Our dining-room had recently been redecorated, and I judged Frequent Hearses would, suitably displayed, tone with the colour scheme . . .
Extract from Slightly Foxed Issue 63, Autumn 2019
Lost in the Fens
Should you really never judge a book by its cover? Had I gone along with that dictum years ago I would not have happened upon Edmund Crispin. Shameful though it is to admit it, I was attracted not by...
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