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An Awkward Lie

Page history last edited by PBworks 17 years, 1 month ago

Innes, Michael - An Awkward Lie (1971)

 

Bobby encounters a body in a sand trap on the golf course early in the morning and recognizes it as his old school Latin master. Unfortunately, by the time he can get the police there, the body has disappeared -- so he goes off to investigate on his own. Amusing and diverting (is divertissement the word?). Very funny in parts, as when he goes back to check out his old school. Turns out to be a spy novel and therefore not a mystery in the sense that the identity of the murderer matters.

 

Wyatt James


 

By 1971 Innes must have felt that Sir John Appleby was getting rather long in the tooth for excursions around the countryside. Enter his son Bobby, or Appleby Lite. This is, I believe, his second outing, and this time he has most of the book to himself. As a thriller hero Bobby is disappointingly conventional -- a Rugger Blue for England and an up-and-coming novelist -- and there is little of interest in the way he deals with a disappearing body on a golf course and the implausibly attractive young lady implicated in its disposal. Sir John himself makes a welcome reappearance in conversation with the bucolic Hoobins, but his participation goes nowhere; in fact throughout the book I found myself looking for plot twists that didn't occur. Both thriller fans and mystery enthusiasts will probably find this a disappointing hybrid.

 

Incidentally, did Bobby have an infancy? Or did he spring like Athene, full-blown from the head of Innes? And what of his (elder?) brothers, the existence of whom is mentioned here? Obviously the Applebys are genteel and wealthy enough to raise their children by remote control, but are there any prior books in the John Appleby saga which allude to his being a father?

 

Jon.

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