Whittle chronicles both the impressive rise of this author-he published eight novels and twenty-one musical compositions by the time he was thirty-two years old-and his long, sad decline. It took me years to find a copy I was able to buy ($35).ĭavid Whittle’s book was money well-spent, for he writes with insight not only about Montgomery’s career in music, but also, more pertinently to crime fiction fans, about the detective fiction that Montgomery wrote under his Crispin pseudonym. Every admirer of Crispin’s mystery fiction (and Montgomery’s music) should read this biography, although affordable copies are hard to find-the publisher, Ashgate, lists it at $155. Music composer Bruce Montgomery (1921-1978), who as Edmund Crispin wrote eight glitteringly witty and amusing detective novels between 19 (as well as, with Geoffrey Bush, a fellow composer and the alleged son of detective novelist Christopher Bush, the classic short story “Who Killed Baker?”) is the subject of a now fifteen-year-old biography by David Whittle, Director of Music at Leicester Grammar School, Bruce Montgomery/Edmund Crispin: A Life in Music and Books (2007).
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