SILENCE OBSERVED - Softcover

Michael Innes

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099547406 ISBN 13: 9780099547402

Publisher: Random House UK, 1988

Synopsis

Separated Since the Civil War. Reunited in the Worst Possible Way. While Julian Cobb is being held as a prisoner in Mexico, Zac Cobb arrives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and is greeted by his two brothers, Joe and James. Summoned together by what they discover are forged telegrams sent by the Secret Service, the three of them are asked to go into Mexico and rescue their bandit brother Julian. Zac is suspicious of the federal government's motives in the matter, and having become engaged to Jenny Hays, he has no desire to risk his life for either the government or his murderer brother. Joe and James decide to go without Zac's help, and on the way they will escort the wife and the beautiful daughter of the Mexican General Escobar, who is holding Julian as a prisoner. The aristocratic Mexican women's need for protection from the Mescalero Apaches proves to be more than true. And as Zac Shadows them across the desert, he quickly discovers the dangers are far greater than they imagined. An army patrol, scalphunters, a band of Apaches, and the Mexican army are all involved. Is Julian Cobb's secret really worth dying for?

About this title

About the Author

Born in Edinburgh in 1906, the son of the city's director of education, John Innes Mackintosh Stewart wrote a highly successful series of mystery stories under the pseudonym Michael Innes. In 1936 he wrote his first mystery story, Death at the President's Lodging. With his second, Hamlet Revenge, he firmly established his reputation as a highly entertaining and cultivated writer. After the end of World War II, he returned to the UK where in 1949 he wrote the Journeying Boy, a novel notable for the richly comedic use of an Irish setting. He then settled down as a reader in English literature at Christ Church, Oxford, from which he retired in 1973. The last of the Innes novels, Appleby and the Ospreys, was published in 1986, some eight years before his death in 1994. The Times Literary Supplement said of him: "A Master—he constructs a plot that twists and turns like an electric eel: it gives you shock upon shock and you cannot let go."

Review

"Inimitable blend of urbanity, fantasy, erudition, and violence." --Sunday Telegraph

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House UK
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0099547406
• ISBN 13: 9780099547402
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160