Holy Disorders

Holy Disorders
Edmund Crispin

As inventive as Agatha Christie, as hilarious as P.G. Wodehouse - discover the delightful detective stories of Edmund Crispin. Crime fiction at its quirkiest and best.Holy Disorders takes Oxford don and part time detective Gervase Fen to 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. The man didn't have an enemy in the world, and even his music was inoffensive: could he have fallen foul of a nest of German spies or of the local coven of witches, ominously rumored to have been practicing since the 17th century?

EDMUND CRISPIN

Holy Disorders

Ther saugh I first the derke ymaginyng

Of felonye, and al the compassyng;

The crueel ire, reed as any gleede;

The pykepurs, and eke the pale drede;

The smylere, with the knyfe under the cloke;

The shepne, brennynge with the blake smoke;

The tresoun of the mordrynge in the bedde;

The open werre, with woundes al bibledde…

The nayl y-driven in the shode a-nyght;

The colde deeth, with mouth gapyng upright…’

Chaucer

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by

Victor Gollancz 1946

Copyright © Rights Limited,

1946. All rights reserved

Edmund Crispin has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

Cover image © Shutterstock.com

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008124182

Ebook Edition © June 2015 ISBN: 9780008124199

Version: 2017-10-26

To my parents

Contents

Cover (#ub224d151-b867-5ee1-882e-58835efc2322)

Title Page (#ufc286b3e-5f34-5581-b148-d6f580765459)

Copyright (#ufb2eeb1a-ac6a-580c-a2ca-6d3488b04172)

Dedication (#ub170d97d-3ecc-57ae-897b-89a4815fe2a9)

Chapter 1: Invitation and Warning (#u68a42cd9-d589-5d12-9412-ba0a8e5b2f4d)

Chapter 2: Do not Travel for Pleasure (#u8cb8846a-93d2-5779-970d-de6033fe016a)

Chapter 3: Gibbering Corse (#u517a4798-1efe-51cb-8212-ff3952f19232)

Chapter 4: Teeth of Traps (#u4744095c-191d-5993-ade6-60fa85ccb61b)

Chapter 5: Conjectures (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6: Murder in the Cathedral (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7: Motive (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8: Two Canons (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9: Three Suspects and a Witch (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10: Night Thoughts (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11: Whale and Coffin (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12: Love’s Lute (#litres_trial_promo)