First published in 1953; republished by Bloomsbury Reader on January 29, 2019

Edmund Crispin was the pen name of Bruce Montgomery, a British mystery writer and musician who did most of his crime writing in the 1940s and 1950s. To give you a sense of his style, here’s a sentence from the story “The Evidence for the Crown”: “This latter circumstance looked like presenting a difficulty, in that Blanche Binney, throttled shortly after lunch one May day on her own sitting-room hearth-rug, was clearly yet another instance of that favourite species of English homicide, the crime passionnel: and there were so many males in Lampoud, married and unmarried, young and old, overt and secretive, who might have resented the catholicity of Blanche’s affections, that the field of suspects seemed at first to be formidably large.” You’ve gotta love mid-century British mysteries.

Somebody chopped off the hand of the lady of dubious repute, and a local constable solves the crime after Crispin steers the reader’s attention away from the culprit. “The Evidence for the Crown” comes near the end of the volume and is one of only two stories that do not feature Oxford Don Gervase Fen and/or Detective Inspector Humbleby.

The other is “Deadlock,” a story told in the first person by a fourteen-year-old boy who is having a midnight adventure when he walks through some blood. A man has been murdered, and in the end, only the boy knows the truth about the murderer’s identity. “Deadlock” is an atmospheric and surprisingly poignant story. It stands as my favorite in the collection.

Another of the volume’s best entries (“The Quick Brown Fox”) explains why criminals are easily captured if they rely on detective stories for inspiration, given the difficulty of pulling off the complex crimes imagined in mysteries. Professor Fen makes good on that theory when he easily solves a murder and an apparent blackmail scheme by spotting the flaw in the murderer’s plan.

Actually, Fen solves most crimes pretty easily. “Beware of the Trains” is like a locked room mystery with a train substituted for the locked room. Nine passengers were riding in groups of three; none of them threw the body from the train. So who did? Humbleby and Fen unravel the mystery.

“Humbleby Agonistes” begins with Humbleby telling Fen about his visit to an old chum who shot at him three times from point blank range and missed. The old chum isn’t bad with a pistol, and in fact had just shot a man in the head in self-defense. Why did the old chum miss? The obvious explanation doesn’t quite make sense to Humbleby, but it takes Fen only a minute to puzzle out the answer.

Fen helps Humbleby resolve another murder, this one involving a love triangle (or maybe a quadrangle) and a seemingly unshakable alibi in “Otherwhere.” The latter story is one of several in which Fen contemplates the relationship between justice and karma.

Fen recounts how he saw through a perfect murder alibi in “Lacrimae Rerum.” He witnesses the murder of a cryptographer in “Within the Gates” and helps the police uncover a corrupt officer. In “Abhorred Shears,” he explains how poison was delivered to a victim in front of several witnesses. His examination of “The Little Room” in a house he is thinking about renting for a charity leads him to suspect (and solve) a crime.

In “Express Delivery,” Fen figures out how a murder was committed (thus proving who committed it) in a case involving suspects who all hoped to inherit from the victim. Fen solves a fairly easy mystery by deducing a robber’s identity in “A Pot of Paint.” In “The Drowning of Edgar Foley,” Fen views a body in the morgue by happenstance and soon discovers who murdered the victim.

Fen shows a bit of a dark side when he explains how a murder involving a missing car was accomplished in “Black for a Funeral,” while Crispin converts a locked room mystery into a ghost story in “The Name on the Window.” In “The Golden Mean,” Fen saves the life of a friend and then, by using a piece of esoteric knowledge, prevents his murder.

The Fen stories are all fairly short. Their brevity leaves little room for character development, although the respective natures of Fen and Humbleby become apparent over time. Fen is astute but a bit arrogant, while Humbleby is an honest plodder. From the days of Holmes and Lestrade, those characteristics have served the characters in British mysteries well. But these stories are about the mysteries more than the characters, and while they vary in quality, the resolutions are generally clever. More importantly, Crispin's leisurely prose style sweeps the reader along, although fans of modern thrillers in which characters are only eloquent when describing their guns might not have the patience to enjoy Crispin’s style.

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Edmund Crispin wrote unusual short stories. They were unusual for me because of their brevity. The mysteries in this collection, first published in 1953, are of the anecdote variety, meaning they are told from the viewpoint of someone who knew the circumstances surrounding the crime to someone else with little or no knowledge of it. Crispin didn't go into a lot of detail in these sixteen short stories so if you want atmosphere from descriptions of locations or the site of the murder you will be disappointed. Instead you will find the circumstances given for a crime which most often has not yet been solved or proved by the authorities. Gervase Fen, a Professor of English Language and Literature in the University of Oxford, is most often discussing the case with Detective Inspector Humbleby of Scotland Yard, but this is not always the case in this collection. Fen has always been one of my favorite fictional crime solvers because he is written in such a sparse, clean way without many personal attachments to take focus away from the case.

This is a short collection of stories from the standpoint of page count, but the temptation was there for me to treat this book with the bon-bon effect: if one is good, then surely another one can't hurt me. I probably would have read the whole book at one sitting if I had been allowed to.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA for the digital galley of this collection.

I have loved a few of Crispin's Gervase Fen screwball mystery books and found others dry or extremely dated.
This collection of short stories avoids the extremes- they are puzzle mysteries for the reader to solve, if they are logical! Recommend for puzzlers who like an old-fashioned British setting.

Beware the Trains is a collection of short stories written by Edmund Crispin, (mostly) featuring Oxford don and amateur criminologist Gervase Fen, each of which feature clever puzzles and "impossible" murders. While trains do not feature prominently in any of the stories (only one of the 16 tales) the stories were charming, with clues strewn about to give the reader a fair chance in attempting to solve the mystery before the story's end. I enjoyed the banter and comfortable friendship (of a kind) between Fen and Inspector Humbleby, who is among the few police detectives with whom Fen interacts; their relationship is akin to the Poirot / Japp dynamic. As these short stories tell snippets of their lives and adventures, I'd be interested in reading more of Crispin's books.

This is a set of short stories buy Edmund Crispin and they do not fail to satisfy, in fact I love reading them, they just go so much further then a full length mystery, and believe me when you read an Edmund Crispin mystery you just don't want it to end. This book just keeps on giving, the characters, the puzzles and the era just a joy to read.

With few exceptions, Gervaise Fen is an oddly unexceptional personality. He has none of the quirks of a Poirot or a Wimsey. His personality doesn’t obtrude. The mysteries in “Beware of the Trains” are cerebral. We have all the facts; if we are too stupid or oblivious not to solve the mystery at the same rate as Fen, well, that only says something about us!

I’m a big fan of Golden Age mysteries, and “Beware of the Train” is not a disappointment.

This collection of short stories didn't hold my attention, but I was able to finish this book. I kept hoping that the next story would be better, but sadly that did not happen.

Not just trains to watch out for. Actually, mostly individuals with murderous agendas of their own. This was such a great concept, mystery stories one can play along with, the ones where the reader is given all the information to crime solve on their own or read along and see how the professionals do it. Gervase Fen, the intrepid protagonist, author’s very own Sherlock, actually isn’t a professional detective, but an English and literature college professor. Nevertheless he possesses a brain prone to analysis and deduction and solving crimes comes naturally to him, even the cases that stump the detectives. All but the last two stories in this collection feature Fen. And the stories are entertaining and fun and not at all tediously dated, despite their advance years. The narratives are light and quite funny and clever at times. I wish I’d enjoyed them more, but alas my severely sleep deprived brain did not rise up to the challenges of detecting (although was able to puzzle out some things here and there and uncover a bunch of clues) and the quaintness of the golden age mysteries became monotonous after a while. I’m convinced a more alert state of mind and the right mood are needed to appreciate this and many old fashioned mystery fans would relish this collection. Thanks Netgalley.

An interesting collection of short stories featuring Gervase Fen, from The Moving Toyshop fame. These stories were overall a less satisfying experience, and some did not even feature Fen at all. He often comes to the aid of Scotland Yard. Fen's solutions are eminently logical and utilising common sense. So who murders the ghastly and atrocious Edgar Foley, and how does a car disappear? There are more such puzzles for the reader's entertainment. I am pleased I read these stories from a bygone era, just wished there was more meat to them. Many thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC.