Murder in the Toyshop

It's funny that a murder occurs in a toyshop.  There's nothing funny about murder.  Edmund Crispin's classic novel, The Moving Toyshop, is a funny murder story.   The location is funny.  The characters are ludicrous.  The dialogue is hilarious.  

This is my first time, EVER, reading a murder mystery that is humorous.  It is purposely written to be funny.  And funny it is.

The story line begins with the poet, Richard Cadogan sweet talking his agent into an advance on his book.  Cadogan takes a holiday by going to his favorite place--Oxford.  He gets off the train in the evening and is tired and hungry.  He needs directions and enters a toyshop. No one is out front, so he wanders out back, even upstairs, where he finds a dead woman.  He is knocked unconscious and wakes to finding himself tied up.  He manages to escape.

From there, he goes to his friend, fellow classmate, and amateur detective, Professor Gervase Fern. They go to the police and bring them to the murder scene.  However, there is no toyshop.  Fen believes Cadogan and the adventure begins.

You won't believe the story from here on.  I won't even attempt to tell you.  There's a ridiculous car that the duo speed around on.  There are farcical characters involved.  It's like keystone cops after Charlie Chaplain.  

This farce is a break from whatever one usually reads.  It's really different and well worthwhile.  

Lessons in Farce

 Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus is the latest hit novel.  Everyone who reads it, loves it. I'm the exception.  At first, I liked it.  It is an easy read and I laughed out loud at the protagonist's witty quips.  Then there is that all important theme of misogyny -- women treated as second class citizens.  But gradually, her lack of social filters, empathy, caricatures, and just her lack of perception of common sense began to wear on me.  I realized that Elizabeth Zott, the main character had Asperger's, or something else on the autism spectrum.  And I'm laughing!  

The reader is supposed to laugh at someone's handicap!  Elizabeth Zott, and her soul-mate, Calvin Evans, were social misfits with their anti-social behavior.

The story wasn't funny, anymore.

Yes, the novel has important themes but they're cliches.  There also was too flippant treatment of suicide, death, and rape. Another thing that bothered me was the male bashing and mockery of religion.  Even the minister admits he doesn't believe in God.  If you are a person of faith, brace yourself.  It wasn't necessary.  Science and religion are compatible.  You can't have science without faith.

You can see where the author's agenda was polarizing.  Unless, Bonnie Garmus set out to write a farce.  Her characters were hyperbolically unrealistic, especially the dog with a vocabulary larger than the readers'.  Who has a neighbor that would welcome babysitting at four in the morning?  The ending was too nicely tied up, which nails the unrealistic story as farce.