Blurbs for Michael Innes Mysteries

(Note: Books are listed alphabetically.)

Appleby and Honeybath (1983)

by Michael Innes

Penguin Books (1984)

Cover price: $3.50

SIR JOHN APPLEBY AND CHARLES HONEYBATH EXPECT A RELAXING WEEKEND AT GRINTON HALL--UNTIL THE APPEARANCE (AND DISAPPEARANCE) OF A GRISLY CORPSE CHANGES THEIR PLANS.

'Every English mansion has a locked room, and the library at Grinton Hall is a classic example: it has hidden doors and passages and, of course, a corpse. The situation becomes even more astounding when the body disappears. As Appleby and Honeybath join forces to solve this intriguing problem, they receive endless "assistance" from the other houseguests, who include an occultist, an art historian, and an authority on Alexander Pope. But the two detectives suspect that the guests are concealing the answers to several grave questions. Could the treasures on the library's shelves be so valuable that someone would murder for them? And just how did the body disappear from the library when the doors and windows were securely locked? This is a splendidly written, surprising tale that only Michael Innes could have conceived.'

Appleby on Ararat (1941)

by Michael Innes

Perennial Library (1st edition, 1983)

Cover price: $2.95

'During the bleak days of the Second World War, Appleby visits a pleasant tropical island in the South Seas, where he encounters an assortment of colonial expatriates, Eurasians, and natives. The scenery is spectacular, the conversation droll and civilized, but ominous events portend imminent disaster on this quiet refuge.'

From London Far (1946)

by Michael Innes

Penguin Books (1977)

Cover price: $1.95

'A random scrap of Augustan poetry muttered in a tobacconist's shop thrusts an absent-minded scholar through a trap-door into short-lived leadership of London's greatest art racket.

'Then it's a chase on the twisting trail of the Titians and Giottos -- a roller-coaster ride from the highland islands of Scotland to America's rich east coast. And all the time Meredith is at grips with problems which are hardly academic.'

Hamlet, Revenge! (1937)

by Michael Innes

Penguin Books (TPB: 1961; MMPB: 1979)

Cover prices: (TPB) $5.95; (MMPB) $2.95

Note: The blurb is the same on both:

'The murder was planned, deliberately, and at obvious risk, to take place bang in the middle of a private performance of Hamlet.

'Behind the scenes there were thirty-one suspects. In the select and distinguished audience, twenty-seven. "Suspicions," said Appleby, "crowd thick and fast upon us."'

Lament for a Maker (1938)

by Michael Innes

Perennial Library (1984)

Cover price: $3.50

'Michael Innes, ranked "in a class by himself among the writers of detective fiction" by the Times Literary Supplement, has produced what is generally recognized as his supreme achievement in Lament for a Maker, which is considered one of the most beautifully written detective novels of all time. Scotland is the setting for murder, and once again Appleby is the investigator.'

"Mr. Innes gives us in this, his best book, a situation compounded by Aeschylus and Drury Lane melodrama ... He tells the story through the mouths of five of his characters in turn ....(You) will be delighted by the colour, pathos and humour of his narrative ... by the consummate skill with which he offers several plausible solutions of the mystery, each one developing naturally out of the last." -- Nicholas Blake, The Spectator

"A grand and ghastly tale, with a surprising double climax." -- The New Yorker