Though A Connoiseur’s Case is a later Michael Innes [First published 1962] it isn’t one of his best – it is of its time, but some of the class assumptions – the forelock touching m’lord stuff does seem increasingly dated. Mind you, a plethora of novelists have had a Lord for a detective. The plot is, as usual, pretty contrived, which means the reader is kept guessing, though the narrative kind of trails along in a pastoral easy going kind of way and nobody gets hot under the collar over the death of a …. servant. Appleby solves it for a kind of dare, so that’s all right.
Though A Connoiseur’s Case is a later Michael Innes [First published 1962] it isn’t one of his best – it is of its time, but some of the class assumptions – the forelock touching m’lord stuff does seem increasingly dated. Mind you, a plethora of novelists have had a Lord for a detective. The plot is, as usual, pretty contrived, which means the reader is kept guessing, though the narrative kind of trails along in a pastoral easy going kind of way and nobody gets hot under the collar over the death of a …. servant. Appleby solves it for a kind of dare, so that’s all right.
Sir John Appleby and his wife are staying with her rich uncle in the country and one a walk discover a corpse in the canal which turns out to be someone coming back from abroad to visit next-door Scroop House where he used to be employed. But why ? What kind of secrets did he know. It’s a slow job for Sir John to find out.
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