Fannish Fifty: Gervase Fen Mysteries

The Gervase Fen books are written by Edmund Crispin, with the majority written in the second half of the 1940s and early 1950s, so give a good description of England at the time.  Fen is a professor of English Literature at Oxford University, but is not a pompous academic, and takes great delight in solving the crimes he encounters.

There is plenty of humour in the stories, although they are not funny tales as such.  I think Fen doesn't take himself too seriously, and definitely doesn't care for those who do.

Some of the books are better than others, and those which are deemed Crispin's best aren't the ones I have enjoyed the most.  Of the eleven books in the series I have read the first seven and will aim to have read them all at some point next year.