[The Glimpses of the Moon] is Edmund Crispin's first full-length work since The Long Divorce, which appeared in 1951. Those who have been waiting for this moment … may find, after a first hurried reading, their joy slightly clouded by disappointment. For though The Glimpses of the Moon offers several dead corses making night hideous, a criminal or two and some policemen, it is not a detective story in the mould of the author's earlier work, but a comic novel constructed round a crime (or crimes), set in darkest Devon.

As before, Gervase Fen is a central character, but he acts throughout more as observer then detective. And although he is allowed a long monologue after the classical model to sum up events in the final chapter, his exposition seems parodic in intent and performance. The climax of the book … violates all canons, since it has very little to do...