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A sleuthing Oxford professor hunts a village blackmailer, in a novel by an author who "combines a flawless plot, witty dialogue, and a touch of hilarity" (The New York Times). In the sleepy English village of Sanford Angelorum, Oxford professor and amateur detective Gervase Fen is taking a break from his books to run for Parliament. At first glance, the village he's come to canvass appears perfectly peaceful, but Fen soon discovers that appearances can be deceiving: someone in the village show more has discovered a dark secret and is using it for blackmail. Anyone who comes close to uncovering the blackmailer's identity is swiftly dispatched. As the joys of politics wear off, Fen sets his mind to the mystery-but finds himself caught up in a tangled tale of eccentric psychiatrists, escaped lunatics, beautiful women, and lost heirs . . . "His books are full of high spirits and excellent jokes, with constant literary allusions . . . But at times the mood turns darker, and Crispin is capable of passages of both genuine suspense and ingenious deduction." -The Daily Telegraph "One of the most literate mystery writers of the twentieth century." -Boston Globe. show lessTags
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As ever, an arrangement of Innes-like set pieces, observations, and situations, a bit too loosely assembled. Still, I enjoyed it.
Lord Sanford and his butler have a Bertie/Jeeves relationship; Lord Sanford is more erudite than Bertie, but his butler is more erudite still. There is humor about trains, once more, and mockery of convoluted and improbable detective stories. The oppressions of an over-regulating government are taken notice of, they eventually result in the destruction of an entire building.
I even learned a new word, "opsimath", meaning a person who learned something late in life, and by implication, pursues that thing with inordinate enthusiasm.
Lord Sanford and his butler have a Bertie/Jeeves relationship; Lord Sanford is more erudite than Bertie, but his butler is more erudite still. There is humor about trains, once more, and mockery of convoluted and improbable detective stories. The oppressions of an over-regulating government are taken notice of, they eventually result in the destruction of an entire building.
I even learned a new word, "opsimath", meaning a person who learned something late in life, and by implication, pursues that thing with inordinate enthusiasm.
Flaneur and man about the High, Gervase Fen, takes time off from Piers Plowman for good behaviour and decides to stand for parliament as an independent. An intricate murder mystery provides the framework for an entertaining diversion on the highways and byways of rural England circa 1950, where things are decidedly rum. Luckily the book ends happily ever after (for all but the 'non doing pig'), as Fen solves the mystery and miraculously escapes the House of Commons to return to the safety of his Senior Common Room..
Professor Gervase Fen becomes bored of academia and decides to stand for parliament, but when he arrives in the sleepy country town at the heart of his constituency to start campaigning, he discovers it to be entangled in a web of blackmail and murder.
The mystery is quite entertaining but not very mysterious: when Fen and the man from Scotland Yard had an esoteric, 'It is obvious, isn't it?' discussion about the culprit, I suspect I was supposed to think, 'No, it isn't,' and spend the next six chapters confused, not correctly deduce the culprit and agree with them.
However, despite the unmysterious mystery, this is a very entertaining book: the characters are strong and the prose is rich and fluid. The comic touches usual to Crispin are show more all there, from the rector's poltergeist to the homing pig living at the pub (rather like a homing pigeon, but eats a lot more), and from the peculiarities of the escaped 'lunatic' to Fen's discovery that politics is much less fun than he expected. show less
The mystery is quite entertaining but not very mysterious: when Fen and the man from Scotland Yard had an esoteric, 'It is obvious, isn't it?' discussion about the culprit, I suspect I was supposed to think, 'No, it isn't,' and spend the next six chapters confused, not correctly deduce the culprit and agree with them.
However, despite the unmysterious mystery, this is a very entertaining book: the characters are strong and the prose is rich and fluid. The comic touches usual to Crispin are show more all there, from the rector's poltergeist to the homing pig living at the pub (rather like a homing pigeon, but eats a lot more), and from the peculiarities of the escaped 'lunatic' to Fen's discovery that politics is much less fun than he expected. show less
Professor Gervase Fen takes up politics and stands as an Independent candidate in the Sanford Angelorum by-election. Then he meets a policeman friend investigating a case of blackmail and poisoning undercover. And then the friend himself is murdered. Of course, for Fen, investigating murder is much more fun than politics.
The mystery is as entertaining as usual and the political satire is still spot on in these days of Brexit and the US Presidential elections.
The mystery is as entertaining as usual and the political satire is still spot on in these days of Brexit and the US Presidential elections.
This is probably my favourite of Crispin's small body of work. His likeable don-detective Gervase Fen decides, for reasons which are never entirely plausible, to stand for parliament at a by-election in the west country somewhere, which involves him going to stay at the village of Sanford Angelorum. A meeting with one Bussy, an old acquaintance (now a policeman), involves him in a murder case, and when Bussy is himself murdered all sorts of complications ensue. As usual there's a strong thread of comedy, including a local courting couple, the renovations at the inn where Fen is staying and strange goings-on at the local rectory. The denoument, as usual, is entirely logical, but I doubt if many readers will see it in advance.
En el tranquilo pueblo inglés de Sanford Angelorum, el profesor y detective aficionado Gervase Fen se está tomando un descanso, además de presentarse como candidato al Parlamento. Fen pronto descubre que las apariencias pueden ser engañosas, y es que en el pueblo se ha descubierto un oscuro secreto que está siendo usado como chantaje. Cualquier persona que se acerque a descubrir la identidad del chantajista es asesinada.
‘Enterrado por placer’ (Buried for Pleasure, 1949), del escritor británico Edmund Crispin (seudónimo de Bruce Montgomery), nos vuelve a traer un nuevo caso, con ciertas dosis de humor, del excéntrico Gervase Fen, construido maravillosamente en su primera mitad. Esta vez, el misterio no tiene la importancia de show more otras de sus novelas, y se centra más en la campaña de Fen y en presentar a los excéntricos personajes. show less
‘Enterrado por placer’ (Buried for Pleasure, 1949), del escritor británico Edmund Crispin (seudónimo de Bruce Montgomery), nos vuelve a traer un nuevo caso, con ciertas dosis de humor, del excéntrico Gervase Fen, construido maravillosamente en su primera mitad. Esta vez, el misterio no tiene la importancia de show more otras de sus novelas, y se centra más en la campaña de Fen y en presentar a los excéntricos personajes. show less
I really liked this mystery, picked up at random at the library. Good plot, if guessable, but mostly it was the writing that was fun. It was witty and literary, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The detective, Gervase Fen, I just can't remember where I've heard of before, but he was amusing. Definitely worth reading.
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Tozai Mystery Best 100 | The Top 100 Mystery Novels
111 works; 3 members
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Buried for Pleasure
- Original title
- Buried for Pleasure
- Alternate titles*
- Sepolto vivo
- Original publication date
- 1948
- People/Characters
- Gervase Fen; Superintendent Wolfe; Detective-Inspector Humbleby; Captain Watkyn
- Important places
- Sanford Angelorum, England, UK; Fish Inn
- Epigraph
- Buried on Monday, buried for health;
Buried on Tuesday, buried for wealth;
Buried on Wednesday, buried for fun;
Buried on Thursday, buried at one;
Buried on Friday, buried for leisure;
Buried on Saturday, burie... (show all)d for pleasure;
Buried on Sunday after eleven,
You get the priest and you go to heaven. - Dedication
- For Peter Oldham
- First words
- "Sanford Angelorum all change," said the station-master.
- Quotations
- "I shall now tell you the reason why fanaticism of this sort is so attractive to humankind. A contemporary French writer - ... - has pointed out with unanswerable logic that men adopt ideas not because it seems to them that t... (show all)hose ideas are true, or because it seems to them that those ideas are expedient, but because those ideas satisfy a basic emotional need of their nature. Now what emotion --- I ask you --- provides the chief motive power of the politically obsessed? You do not answer, because you have never given the matter a moment's thought. But were you to do so, even you might dimly perceive that the reply to my question is the monosyllable hate. Never forget that political zealots are people who are over-indulging their emotional need of hatred. They have, of course, their constructive 'programmes', but it is not these that supply the fuel for their squalid engines; it is the concomitant attacks, upon a class, a system, a personality; it is the lust to defame and destroy."
"For some days past I have been regaling this electorate with projects and ideas so incomparably idiotic as to be, I flatter myself, something of a tour-de-force. Into what I have said no gleam of reason has been allowed to i... (show all)ntrude; and I can think of scarcely a single error, however ancient and obscure, which I have failed to propagate. Some, it is true, have cavilled at my twaddle; but their objection has been to its superficies, and not to its inane basic principles, which have included, among other laughable notions, the idea that humanity progresses, and that fatuous corruption of the Christian ethic which asserts that everyone is responsible for the well-being of everyone else."
Psychologists were unfortunate, he reflected, in that among technical jargons theirs alone had been so completely vulgarised as to have lost all impressiveness. Doctors could still awe their hearers with talk of oedema and ec... (show all)chymosis, physicists with talk of dielectric constants, isotopes and photonic mass, chemists with talk of allotropic modification and multiple equivalence; it was only the luckless psychologist who lacked professional runes, for trauma, complex, fixation and the like had long since been deprived by popular usage of all hierophantic mystery - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Fen climbed into his car and drove to Sanford Morvel to look for a room for the night.
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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