Mon 17 Apr 2023
MICHAEL INNES – Appleby and the Ospreys. Sir John Appleby #35. Victor Gollancz, UK, hardcover, 1986. Dodd Mead, US, hardcover, 1987. Penguin, US, paperback, 1988.
Sir John Appleby has been comfortably retired from Scotland Yard for some short period of time as this book begins, and while he takes up the reins of the ensuing investigation with zest, it was as it turned out, his very last case. With some small quibbles, it’s a fitting end to Sir John’s career in print that began way back in 1936, over 50 years earlier, right in the middle of the Golden Age of Detection.
Dead is Lord Osprey, stabbed to death in his library overnight. His home, a pile of a house called Clusters, is full of possible suspects, but there is also the matter of the stranger seen outside through a window before the previous evening’s dinner. Was it as inside job at all, or was the proverbial passing tramp?
A possible motive is the dead man’s valuable coin collection, but strangely enough it is impossible to know whether it is even missing: the dead man kept its location in the huge manor house a closely guarded secret.
Michael Innes was perhaps the most erudite mystery writer of them all, and his slightly sardonic and mocking wit makes this adventure a great deal of fun to read. Paradoxically, however, it can also provide a stumbling block to quick and easy reading, especially in the early going. Once the investigation begins in earnest, such a quibble, if it is one, gradually fades away.
Complicating matters is the matter of the local tavern owner’s daughter, whose virtue is claimed to have been sullied by the dead man. To present day readers it may seem as though Appleby and Inspector Ringwood, whom he is assisting, take these charges less seriously than they might do today. (I don’t know if this is a quibble or not.)
A larger one is that, in spite of the length of the investigation — which truthfully does not sag in the middle as many such investigations do — the case is wrapped up rather quickly toward the end, and maybe even a little too incongruously, depending on your own feeling toward such things. It mattered little to me. I enjoyed it, this one last great blast from the past.
April 17th, 2023 at 1:09 am
A fellow blogger who goes by the name of TomCat has also reviewed this book:
http://moonlight-detective.blogspot.com/2018/11/appleby-and-ospreys-1986-by-michael.html
in which he says in part, and I quote:
“Appleby and the Ospreys is a short, easy to solve detective novel and had it not been for the fact that it was the last in an illustrious line that stretched all the way back to the beginning of the 20th century, it would have been a unremarkable country house mystery. Appleby and the Ospreys was the last of its kind. And with the reminiscent story-telling, it was a bit of a melancholic read. As if you’re listening to your grandfather telling a story from his past for the umpteenth time, but you pretend to hear it for the first time, because it’s probably the last time you’ll hear him tell it.”
I wish I could have said it as well as that.
April 18th, 2023 at 2:35 am
Not quite the last Innes. In 1987, as J.I.M. Stewart, he published Myself and Michael Innes: A Memoir, one of the least-revealing memoirs of all time.
April 18th, 2023 at 9:56 am
Thanks, Roger. I’m aware of the memoir, but only vaguely. I might finally decide to track down a copy!
April 18th, 2023 at 7:26 pm
As far as tropes go even this late Innes can be forgiven for falling back on the stereotype of the tavern owner’s daughter, particularly the English tavern owner’s daughter, celebrated as a type as a fairly lusty creatures dating back to the origin of the tavern owner (think FOREVER AMBER).
We are more sensitive today, but for a writer of Innes generation the local squire and the tavern owner’s daughter would have been generally handled with slightly bawdy humor even as a motive for murder in a light-hearted mystery.
Much as we might wish Innes and Appleby were more woke, it really is too much to ask of a writer who first put pen to paper in the Golden Age of the genre to anticipate how much the terrain would change in another going on forty years.
In 1986 you could still do the trope and expect little or no blowback.
Still, this is a surprisingly entertaining book for one coming this late in Innes and Appleby’s career, and as pointed out once it starts to peel back the layers of the onion still clever and involving.
Innes always was a curious mix of John Buchan, Agatha Christie, P.G. Wodehouse, Noel Coward, and an Ealing Comedy.
April 18th, 2023 at 8:24 pm
Yes, the incident of the tavern owner’s daughter was indeed played for bawdy humor and in the mid-1980s would still be received as such. It was clearly intended as filler and a semi-humorous aside, and not as a serious contender for the question of who killed the dead man. Just a quibble, even today, I should say.
And your last paragraph? A perfect combination!
April 19th, 2023 at 9:10 am
Thanks for the kind mention, Steve!
April 19th, 2023 at 4:35 pm
Innes ranged wider still, David. Add Wilkie Collins (in Lament for a MAker) and Robert Louis Stevenson and as J.I.M. Stewart he showed the influence of Henry James, Anthony Powell and C.P. Snow at various times.
He is infuriating because he was so astonishingly talented but chose to write rapid entertainments for money to amuse himself and others when he had the ability to be a “big” novelist. I’d guess that (apart from having a family to support) he knew too much about literature to see beyond what he knew.
April 19th, 2023 at 7:44 pm
Roger, I agree. Innes literary influences are many and range from playful to serious as his range as a writer ranges from playful to serious.