The Moving Toyshop
Edmund Crispin
205 pages
published in 1946
Edmund Crispin, the pseudonym of Robert Bruce Montgomery, who under his own name wrote music scores for amongst others, the Carry On series of movies — something I only learned when I looked him up on Wikipedia just now — was yet another of those cult favourite English detective writer. Sometimes it seems there are hundreds of such writers published from the twenties to the sixties, intermittedly forgotten and rediscovered after their deaths. In Crispin’s case he’s on the upswing, his novels having been reissued in both American and British editions in recent years. This is less of an enterprise than with some detective writers, as he only wrote nine novels and two short story collections.
My copy of The Moving Toyshop isn’t a shiny new reissue though, but a green paperback Sandra bought years ago, when she first had discovered Crispin. She was always much more of a crime reader than I am, always keen to reread old favourites, of which this was one. You can easily tell as there was a cigarette burn (and even some ash still) near the front of the book; this having been one of the books she reread a lot in hospital. I can just picture her sitting in her wheelchair, cup of crappy tea or coffee nearby, out in the hospital garden smoking a fag, reading this book and perhaps dozing off and dropping her ciggie in it….