Appleby's Answer

As is common with Appleby novels, we have an English rural setting populated with traditional types, but improbabilities and whimsy predominate. Here, Miss Pringle, a moderately successful mystery writer, encounters what appears to be the epitome of an English gentleman in a first-class railway carriage, reading one of her own mysteries. This gentleman, General Bulkington, starts asking Miss Pringle about the possibility of their collaborating on a detective tale--except Miss Pringle thinks he actually wants her to come up with a good way to murder his neighbor. That same evening, at the London dinner of a detective writer society, Sir John Appleby, the guest of honor, hears a similar story from another mystery writer.

This mystery is show more something of an amuse-bouche, in that nothing very serious ever happens. Having read the previous 26, I'm now thoroughly accustomed to not knowing what to expect in any of Innes's books, and to letting the absurdity unfold (here we get, for example, an unfriendly billy goat in a midnight garden). show less

Priscilla Pringle, the well-known writer of detective stories, is offered 500 pounds by a stranger on a train to collaborate on the plot for a novel. But could the stranger be intending an actual murder rather than a fictional one? Fortunately, Miss Pringle is on her way to a talk for crime writers by Sir John Appleby.

I giggled my way through this one. Priscilla Pringle is the funniest detective writer since Ariadne Oliver.

A very amusing late Appleby story; read it clean through very quickly and enjoyed it a great deal. Some good meta-detective-fiction bits, too.

It's generally held that Innes's later work is inferior to the earlier stuff, but that doesn't mean they are wholly lacking in merit; in fact, on re-reading this after several years, I found it stood up quite well. The plot revolves around a lady crime writer, Miss Pringle, and the consequences of her encounter with the strange Captain Bulkington, who runs a seedy cramming establishment. Are they just collaborating on a new crime novel? Or is something more sinister in hand? The minor characters are well-drawn and most first-time readers won't guess what is really going on. As usual in the later books, Appleby is not as erudite as he used to be (some may see this as a plus point) but his final intervention is effective.

A later and lighter effort by Michael Innes. This is his only book where the protagonist is a female writer of detective novels. Appleby is, coincidentally, on hand for the denouement. The new word is "dyslogistic".

Innes appears to have devoted very little effort to the murder plot, choosing to focus his attention rather on the writing of the scenes in the church and the various altercations with the local equestrian gentry. These scenes are enjoyable but not as extravagantly funny as in earlier works.

Can't get enough of the Appleby series. The only negative thing was the disturbingly creepy cover.

Clever language, but dated