Location: St. Mary’s Church, Dartington, Devon, England Plot: Churchyard Extension
Cause of death: Alcohol-related problems
Photo taken by: Herbythyme
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English composer who wrote crime novels using the pseudonym Edmund Crispin. He first became established under his own name as a composer of vocal and choral music, including An Oxford Requiem (1951), but later turned to film work, writing the scores for many British comedies of the 1950s. For the Carry On series he composed six scores including the original Carry On theme subsequently adapted for later films by Eric Rogers.
Montgomery wrote nine detective novels and two collections of short stories under the pseudonym Edmund Crispin (taken from a character in Michael Innes's Hamlet, Revenge!). The stories feature Oxford don Gervase Fen, who is an eccentric, sometimes absent-minded, character. The whodunit novels have complex plots and fantastic, somewhat unbelievable solutions, including examples of the locked room mystery. They are written in a humorous, literary and sometimes farcical style and contain frequent references to English literature, poetry, and music. Crispin is considered by many to be one of the last great exponents of the classic crime mystery.
His output of music and fiction all but ceased after the 1950s, but he continued to write reviews of crime novels and science fiction works for The Sunday Times.
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