A Connoisseur's Case [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Michael Innes (Author), Julie Dewitt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1980

When John Appleby's wife, Judith, sets eyes on Scroop House, she insists that they introduce themselves to the owners - a suggestion that makes her sometimes reserved husband turn very pale. When Judith hears the village gossip about the grand house, she is even more intrigued; but when a former employee is found dead in the lock of the disused canal, and the immense wealth of Scroop's contents is revealed, Appleby has a gripping investigation on his hands.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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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, Innes 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. His most famous character is 'John Appleby', who inspired a penchant for donnish detective fiction that lasts to this day. Innes's other well-known character is 'Honeybath', the painter and rather reluctant detective, who first appeared in 1975 in 'The Mysterious Commission'. The last novel, 'Appleby and the Ospreys', was published in 1986, some eight years before his death in 1994. '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.' - Times Literary Supplement. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 294 pages
• Publisher: Ulverscroft Large Print Books (March 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0708904211
• ISBN-13: 978-0708904213
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,261,018 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Death and the English canal system, September 14, 2002

By 

E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Connoisseur's Case (Inspector Appleby Mystery S.) (Paperback)

The adventures of Dashiell Hammett's retired private eye Nick Charles and his rich, and not-quite-as-ditzy-as-you'd-think wife could be called the American equivalent of the mysteries of New Scotland Yard Commissioner of Police Sir John Appleby and his wife, Lady Judith----although the latter doesn't have an ounce of ditz in her personality. However, she does occasionally reveal a playful side to her husband.

At the beginning of "A Connoiseur's Case," the reader finds Sir John and his wife strolling along a disused canal, one fine English summer day. They indulge in affectionately ironic conversation, making it obvious that theirs is a long-standing marriage (although as I remember, they also talked that way to each other before marriage---see "Appleby's End"):

Lady Judith: "It's private enough. As we were saying, this country-side seems absolutely deserted. Not a sign of habitation, population, a trace of the modern world."

Sir John: "You're wrong there, Judith. Look south."

"Judith looked south---which was towards what Appleby had called the secondary motor road. All she saw was a momentary glint of light.

"'I think,' she said, `that I saw the sun reflected from the wind screen of a passing car. Right?'

"'Right as far as you go. What you saw was a silver-grey Rolls-Royce Phantom V.'

"'My dear John, it's terribly vulgar to name cars---particularly astoundingly expensive ones. It's only done by cheap novelists. You must just say: `a very large car.''

"Appleby received this with hilarity."

Eventually (you knew this was going to happen), the Applebys find a body floating face-down in the scummy canal-water. The quest for the murderer of returned prodigal, Seth Crabtree, proceeds in the leisurely fashion of a Golden Age British manor house mystery. It is leavened, as are all of Michael Innes's novels, with a great deal of erudite wit and conversation. It has not one, but two snobbish butlers, and also features Judith's eccentric great-uncle, Colonel Raven whose life's work-in-progress is the "Atlas and Entomology of the Dry-Fly Streams of England."

If you are a already a fan of Margery Allingham, Edmund Crispin, or Dorothy Sayers, you definitely need to add Michael Innes's mysteries to your reading list. "A Connoiseur's Case" is perfect in its class, and you will also learn quite a bit about the English Canal system.

Note: Alternate title is "The Crabtree Affair"