Widely considered an underappreciated gem of British crime fiction, Gervase Fen—eccentric Oxford don and amateur criminologist—is a delightfully unconventional detective. The novels and short stories featuring the compulsively quipping sleuth employ equal elements of ingenuity and comedy, with a touch of the fantastic and an ample smattering of both witty commentary and literary allusions. We're offering four of his most popular novels—The Case of the Gilded Fly (a paragon of the locked-room genre, set at Oxford University), The Moving Toyshop (a surreally baffling mystery involving a disappearing building), The Glimpses of the Moon (a high-spirited investigation of a string of decapitations in a rural village), and Frequent Hearses (an entertaining send-up of the film industry). Armchair sleuths will enjoy the two short story collections, Beware of the Trains and Fen Country, in which Edmund Crispin presents all the clues for the reader to go head-to-head with the ingenious detective!