The Moving Toyshop

Name: The Moving Toyshop
Author: Edmund Crispin

Edmund Crispin

— 1946 —

“

A body in a toyshop that disappears by morning; an Oxford don detective named Gervase Fen; infectious wit and ingenious plotting that has never gone out of print.

Decide its fate

The record

Time
An eveningA season
224 pages, about 4 hours: two-thirds the length of a typical book on the shelf.
Getting in
Walk right inSteep climb
One reader quit halfway, citing the farcical style; another calls the book a slog.
What it gives
Plot and actionIdeas to live by
In 11 reviews from critics and book blogs, 7 credit the plot and none credit the ideas or a change in how they live.
One of a kind
Others do thisNothing else does
A blog post calls it Crispin’s version of Carr’s The Hollow Man, on the shelf at 303 pages.

The case for it

on Fen and Cadogan
“the brilliant double-act that are Fen and Cadogan”
five stars · a book blog
on the Oxford chase
“Mack Sennett chase of dons and bulls of Oxford”
Kirkus Reviews, 1946
on combining comedy and detection
“few mystery writers able to combine situation comedy and high spirits with detection”
P. D. James · The Wall Street Journal, 2006
on Cadogan as Watson
“makes for an engaging and funny Watson”
a book blog

The case against

on the plot’s coincidences
“relies heavily on coincidences, improbabilities and things which are so far-fetched as to be ridiculous”
a book blog
on the later chases
“the madcap chases and confrontations got old”
a book blog
on the writing style
“turned off by the farcical writing style”
a book blog
on the humor
“I didn’t think it rose to the level of Wodehouse hilarity that the blurb promised”
a book blog