Appleby's End - Softcover

Michael Innes

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140030026 ISBN 13: 9780140030020

Publisher: Penguin Books, 1972

Synopsis

By the way,’ said Appleby, ‘what is the name of this sta –’ He stopped, his question already answered. Straight before him, sufficiently lit by the yellow rays of a hanging lantern, was a boldly lettered board. He read the inscription: APPLEBY’S END.

Strange things have been happening in Snarl: missing animals have been replaced with marble effigies; ominous tombstones have arrived predicting future deaths. Detective Inspector John Appleby is travelling by train to consult on the case. His journey is interrupted, however, when the inscrutable Mr. Raven informs Appleby that he won’t make his connection, and seems more than keen to offer Appleby a place to sleep for the night.

Appleby is charmed by this kindness, but is soon plagued by second thoughts. As the train compartment fills, Appleby notices a striking resemblance between the passengers: the same long nose, the same cold eyes… soon he is faced with the entire Raven family. What could these strangers possibly want with Appleby?

As Appleby learns more about the Ravens and their novelist relative, Ranulph, he begins to suspect a connection to his case. Do the Ravens have sinister intentions, or are they the key to solving the mystery?

In this bizarre little town filled with curious characters and troubling tales, should Appleby feel safe, or should he have seen the signs?

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. Innes was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, where he was presented with the Matthew Arnold Memorial Prize and named a Bishop Frazer's scholar. After graduation, he went to Vienna to study Freudian psychoanalysis for a year and following his first book, an edition of Florio's translation of 'Montaigne', was offered a lectureship at the University of Leeds. In 1932 he married Margaret Hardwick, a doctor, and they subsequently had five children including Angus, also a novelist. The year 1936 saw Innes as Professor of English at the University of Adelaide, during which tenure he wrote his first mystery story, 'Death at the President's Lodging'. With his second, 'Hamlet Revenge', Innes firmly established his reputation as a highly entertaining and cultivated writer. After the end of World War II, he returned to the UK and spent two years at Queen's University, Belfast, 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. Innes's most famous character is 'John Appleby', who inspired a penchant for donnish detective fiction that lasts to this day. His other well-known character is 'Honeybath', the painter and rather reluctant detective, who first appeared in 1975 in 'The Mysterious Commission'. The last of the Innes novels, 'Appleby and the Ospreys', was published in 1986, some eight years before his death in 1994. His work is still very highly regarded and 'Appleby's End' and 'The New Sonia Wayward' were chosen by H.R.F. Keating as being amongst the best 100 crime novels ever written. 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

?Inspector John Appleby's latest adventure in crime is sure of instant success with fans of the larger hat sizes, especially those who are up on their classic allusions.... You can hardly go wrong if you take this as a scholarly lark with detection in the same vein. Fantastic is the word.?-Weekly Book Review

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 1972
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140030026
• ISBN 13: 9780140030020
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192