Originally published in 1937, Hamlet, Revenge! is the second novel to feature Inspector John Appleby as he investigates the murder of Lord Auldearn, the Lord Chancellor of England during an amateur production of Hamlet at the country house of the Duke of Horton. Appleby works closely with Giles Gott, who appeared in the first book of the series and keeps Appleby informed on the guests and family at the large country estate of Scamnum Court. Along with the murder, there is espionage and a mysterious puzzle to unravel.

I won’t be counting this book as one of my favorites of Innes as I found it rather too clever. Chock full of Shakespearan quotes, the actual plot was intricate but dense and moved very slowly. There was a large cast of characters to keep track of and they all seemed to have motive and opportunity. Overall I found the story rather pretentious, slightly amusing but not a book that I believe I will long remember. ( )

Innes takes his time setting the stage, introducing us to (most of) the cast of characters in what is essentially an English country house murder mystery with a twist, as Scamnum Court is closer to a castle than a house and the Duke and Duchess of Horton have over 200 house guests (with associated servants). The pace picks up considerably once the murder occurs (during an amateur performance of Hamlet), and Inspector Appleby is sent to investigate by none other than the Prime Minister himself as there is the possibility of espionage. Only hours after arriving, Appleby is confronted with a second corpse...

Innes' writing style is a bit dry with a hidden wit - it might not be to everyone's taste but I like it; an author who can refer to Conrad's Lord Jim and P.G. Wodehouse's Lord Emsworth on the same page and make sly references to Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot is my kind of guy! As Appleby says at one point in the investigation: "Order, method: the little grey cells!" and later, one of the house guests suggests the Duke send for "...a real detective. There is a very good man whose name I forget; a foreigner and very conceited -- but, they say, thoroughly reliable."

This is a greater tribute than it might appear at first sight; Hamlet, Revenge! first was released in 1937 so Poirot was not nearly as well-known as he is today. My biggest complaint is that things got pretty convoluted towards the end, although the ultimate solution was satisfying and unexpected (at least by me).
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Murder at a country home during an elaborate amateur production of Hamlet, with possible involvement of spies, and nearly 30 suspects. Warning: because one of the characters is a dark-skinned Indian, there's a disturbing amount of dated racist language. Fortunately this is a pretty skippable mystery. Overstuffed and overwritten. Dogmatic about Shakespeare where the author makes sure that everyone has the same single viewpoint of what Hamlet is all about. Intent on making the mystery as complicated as possible, which leads to interminable rundowns on the status of each of the 10 most likely suspects.

Not recommended. ( )

Giles Gott, some sort of Oxford academic, is putting on a performance of Hamlet at Scamnum Court, the seat of the Duke of Horton who is the head of the Crispin family. Gott is presenting the play in a form as close as possible to the way it would have been staged in Shakespeare's time, so the lengthy descriptions of the stage layout, while tedious and confusing, are relevant to the plot. Not much else is. There's a great deal of academic waffle, which confuses rather than elucidates, a large cast of potential murderers who are almost impossible to remember, and a complicated plot that hinges on a ludicrous motive. As a detective story this is a failure. Fortunately there is only one conversation in classical Greek, and it's short. ( )

I didn't like this as well of the first book in the series and definitely not as much as the later books. The plot was too complicated and for me, there were a lot of loose ends. The writing was a little less academic than the previous book but it still requires a lot of knowledge of high level English education to fully enjoy. I did OK, especially because I'm familiar with Hamlet and have probably seem it more than once but I can see why these books may attract a particular audience. ( )