Mon 28 Jul 2014
Reviewed by Marvin Lachman: MICHAEL INNES – A Night of Errors.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[3] Comments
by Marv Lachman
MICHAEL INNES – A Night of Errors. Dodd Mead, US, hardcover, 1947. US paperback reprints include: Berkley F833, 1963; Penguin, 1966; Perennial Library, 1989 (shown). First UK edition: Gollancz, hardcover, 1948.
In A Night of Errors by Michael lanes, the inspector who asks Sir John Appleby’s assistance says, “The whole thing is a nightmare. Three identical brothers creeping around the place with each other’s dead bodies! It’s like a drunken hallucination.”
It’s certainly a hilarious farce, one which owes more than its similarity of title to Shakespeare’s A Comedy of Errors. One character is Romeo Dromio. There is also a thieving butler named Swindle, and Grubb, the gardener who “had long schooled himself in the prime duty of being disgruntled.”
Besides the civilized dialogue and literary allusions we have come to expect from Innes, there are many plot surprises, as well as a fair and ingenious, if scarcely believable, solution.
July 28th, 2014 at 6:09 pm
Believable was never the best reason to read Innes, but he was often droll, inventive, and playful in a way that recalls televisions THE AVENGERS — especially in the thrillers.
I don’t think I ever read a novel by Innes that wasn’t at least entertaining.
July 28th, 2014 at 6:47 pm
I’ve only sampled some of Innes’s work so far, with only hit or miss success, as far as I was concerned, which hasn’t urged me to read further. This one sounds like one I would enjoy, though.
July 29th, 2014 at 9:00 pm
Steve
Try some of the thrillers like THE JOURNEYING BOY, OPERATION PAX, or the desert island mystery APPLEBY ON ARARAT, THE SECRET VANGUARD, ONE MAN SHOW, and WEIGHT OF THE EVIDENCE. ONE MAN SHOW rises at times to near Marxian heights of absurdity, yet is never less than a fine mystery.