The Ampersand Papers

aving arrived too early for an appointment, Appleby is killing time by taking a stroll on a beach beneath some cliffs, when Dr Sutch plummets to the ground in front of him amidst the ruins of a staircase. An unfortunate accident or deliberate sabotage?

A superb example of Innes's penchant for half-witted, if not completely dotty, aristos. I didn't come close to solving this one and yet the ending felt rather perfunctory.

One of the better late Innes, told with a tone of irony throughout. In the first part, we learn about the papers at Treskinnick, the home of the Marquis of Ampersand, which may include important literary material of the English romantics (Shelley et al.). Sir John Appleby enters the picture when he is nearly killed by the collapse of a wooden staircase onto the beach below Treskinnick. Dr. Sutch, the scholar employed by Lord Ampersand to investigate the papers, has actually died in this collapse, so Appleby finds himself investigating what really happened at Treskinnick.

Now that's more like it. Potentially valuable literary manuscripts, buried treasure, family intrigue, crumbly old castle towers ... a grand detective story, delightfully told.

Definitely one of the weaker of the later Appleby novels. It starts well with a comic upper-crust family living in a Cornish castle finding that a relation may have left some valuable literary papers, and bringing in a researcher to look into it. The murder itself (the researcher falls from a high staircase practically on top of Sir John himself) is arresting, but from then on it fails to arouse much interest, and the solution is a let-down (as often with the later Innes).

Another Appleby book

Started off well, but fell away over the last third

Big Ship

2018

Top edge of book eaten.