Honeybath's Haven

Summary: Little does artist Charles Honeybath think that yielding his place in a senior home will lead to an artist friend’s death.

I’ve long been a fan of Michael Innes Appleby mysteries. I did not look too closely when I picked up several Innes paperbacks with the green Penguin crime fiction spines. Therefore, I did not realize I had found an Innes book in which Appleby was not the protagonist. Instead, this is one of several featuring artist Charles Honeybath.

In this book, we learn that Honeybath had reserved a place at Hanwell Court, what today we might call a retirement community. But a visit leads to second thoughts. And then he learns of the hapless state of his artist friend Edwin Lightfoot. He’s taken to episodes in which show more he pretends to be a long-dead petty criminal, Flannel Foot. His art, apart from a few sketches, has taken a turn to the mediocre. It’s driving his wife, Melissa, crazy, and in the end she leaves him.

Honeybath learns of his miserable state from Melissa’s brother, Ambrose Prout. Edwin has lost their flat and lives miserably in his studio. Honeybath remembers his place at Hanwell Court and offers it to Edwin. He accepts.

Hanwell Court is a stately old estate divided into apartments, in a park-like setting. There is a resident psychiatrist, Dr. Michaelis, to attend to the mental health needs of the eccentric individuals who make their home there. Richard Gaunt has a fascination with lethal weapons like stilettoes. Colonel Dacre loves his rifles, and spending time at the rifle range (and occasionally stalking other prey). Mr. Brown, the man in the panama hat, seems to be the resident snoop, aware of everyone’s doings. Lady Munden, recently widowed, grows seaweed in the community pond, her pet project.

At first Edwin appears to do well. His paintings are mediocre but his sketches show a flair of his old genius. Most are caricatures of the residents, seemingly well-received by all but Lady Munden. However, Honeybath is uneasy about the “care” his friend is receiving from Dr. Michaelis. Then he discovers that Ambrose Prout is conspiring with Dr. Michelis to find missing works from Lightfoot’s zenith as an artist.

Honeybath gets his friend away on an artist’s excursion to Italy. While in Pisa, they run into Melissa, and Honeybath reveals Ambrose’s doings. When Edwin hears of this, he decides to immediately return to set things straight. A few days later, Hanwell Court employees find his body tangled in Lady Munden’s seaweed.

Honeybath doesn’t think it was an accident. Nor does Adamson, a Scotland Yard investigator. Yet, while several people might have motive against Lightfoot, was it enough for murder? Only the invasion of a criminal gang onto Hanwell Court’s grounds will expose the murderer and contribute to that person’s demise.

While this plot certainly had enough twists and turns to keep the reader wondering, this didn’t seem to have the elegance and flow of the Appleby stories. Honeybath seems more storyteller than sleuth. I like Innes as a writer for style and plotting. However, this was not one of my favorites. show less

Enjoyable little crime story - written in 1977 and the second of Innes's novels to feature the elderly portrait painter Charles Honeybath, RA. In this one, which could easily have become a script for Midsomer murders or New tricks if Innes/Stewart had been a generation or so younger, Honeybath's old friend and confrère Edwin Lightfoot starts acting more than usually oddly and has to be shipped off to an upmarket sanctuary for elderly, rich eccentrics. Honeybath smells a rat when three previously unknown paintings from Lightfoot's much sought-after early period suddenly appear on the market...

The structure is a bit odd for a crime story: the first body doesn't appear until more than halfway through the book, and the resolution is rather show more unusual as well, but Innes knows what he's doing and it all seems to work.

Old-fashioned, certainly, and without much bite to it, but elegant and charming enough to be worth laying down for when you need a bit of comfort reading. show less