Theatre companies are notorious hotbeds of intrigue, and few are more intriguing than the company currently in residence at Oxford University. Center-stage is the beautiful, malicious Yseut, a mediocre actress with a stellar talent for destroying men. Rounding out the cast are more than a few of her past and present conquests, and the women who love them. And watching from the wings is Professor Gervase Fen-scholar, wit, and fop extraordinaire-who would rather solve crimes than expound on English literature. When Yseut is murdered, Fen finally gets his wish. Gilded Fly, originally published in 1944, was both Fen's first outing and the debut of the pseudonymous Crispin (in reality, composer Bruce Montgomery).

Oxford don and part-time detective Gervase Fen is in the town of Tolnbridge where he is happily bounding around with a butterfly net until the cathedral organist is murdered, giving Fen the chance to play sleuth. Tracking down the culprit pleases Fen immensely. Did the victim fall afoul of German spies or local witches?

Richard Cadogan's Oxford holiday turns into a mystery solving adventure full of dangerous twists and unexpected turns. After an eventful train journey, Cadogan arrives in Oxford late at night only to realise that he has forgotten the exact address of his stay. Relying on a distant memory of the place he boarded in years ago he accidentally enters a toyshop where, to his surprise and fright, he finds the dead body of a woman. Knocked out and locked in the store room, Cadogan emerges to find that the body is gone and the toyshop has turned inexplicably into a grocery shop. Luckily for the puzzled poet his old university friend Gervase Fen is there, ready to plunge into the midst of this mystery. The Moving Toyshop is Edmund Crispin's most famous novel featuring eccentric amateur detective, Gervase Fen.

Before odious Edwin Shorthouse can sing the lead in the first Oxford post-war Die Meistersinger, someone kills him in his own locked dressing room. Gervase Fen, eccentric professor of English Literature with a passion for amateur detecting, is on the case. American title is Dead and Dumb.

Castrevenford school invites English professor and amateur sleuth Gervase Fen to present the prizes at Speech Day. However the night before, strange events leave two staff members dead. The Headmaster calls on Professor Fen to investigate.

Professor Gervase Fen, always in pursuit of a witty epigram, declares candidacy for Parliament, ready to serve the good people of "Where was it again?" His political ambitions are sidetracked by the murdered policeman who crops up on the campaign trail, the escaped naked lunatic "Woodrow Wilson", a peculiar clergyman, and a love-struck pig.

When Oxford don Gervaise Fen serves as a literary advisor on a film, he becomes involved with the death of a bit-part actress

Gervase Fen investigates a murder that was preceded by the same kind of anonymous and malicious letter others in the village of Cotten Abbas have received

Death and decapitation seem to go hand in hand in the Devon village of Aller. When the first victim's head is sent floating down the river, the village's rural calm is shattered. Soon the corpses are multiplying and the entire community is involved in the murder hunt. While the rector, the major, the police and a journalist, desperate for the scoop of the century, chase false trails, it is left to Gervase Fen, Oxford don and amateur criminologist, to uncover the sordid truth.

Amateur detective and Oxford don, Gervase Fen, with the assistance of Inspector Humbleby solves a series of baffling mysteries