Gervase Fen is a fictional amateur detective and Oxford Professor of English Language and Literature created by Edmund Crispin.
Fen is alternately "charming, frivolous, brilliant and badly behaved"[1] and in the stories acts on his own as an amateur detective as well as frequently assisting the police with their investigations.
[2] He is described by one of the other characters in the novel as "Cherubic, naive, volatile, and entirely delightful, he wandered the earth taking a genuine interest in things and people unfamiliar."
[2] Upon completing a case, Fen is described as entering moods of profound gloom similar to the post-case "reactions" experienced by Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.
His life is regularly threatened in the books, generally by murderers, but also by homicidal dogs,[3] witches[4] and his own lunatic driving in his beloved car "Lily Christine III".
The Moving Toyshop was adapted for the 1960s BBC TV anthology series Detective, Fen was played by Richard Wordsworth.