zany fun ( )

Excellent Impossible Crime plot. ( )

Gervase Fen is not particularly interested in a local murder until another decapitated body is found at the village fête.

Some of the humour has not worn well but other parts still had me laughing till it hurt. The mystery was good fun but it was the surrounding repartee and chaos that really made it worth reading. ( )

Crispin's last book, after a long break and not his best, but the usual amusing and complicated read which plays up to all the standard prejudices of country Englishhood, characters and institutions, including village idiots (two), dotty spinsters, fox hunting, British Electric, "foreigners" and The Colonies.Fen is present, but the story does revolve mainly round other characters and almost totally implausible and coincidental occurrences which lead to the exposure of the perpetrator. Good fun. ( )

March 2020 reread: I had somehow forgotten how funny Crispin can be! Lots of chuckles while I was reading this.
---------------------------
August 2017 reread: While not Crispin's best mystery, the humor and eccentric characters make this a fun book to read. I think that I enjoyed Fen's literary references much more in this reread as I am more familiar with the authors mentioned than I was 25 years ago when I first read this. ( )