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Hamlet, Revenge! (Inspector Appleby Mystery S.)

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This classical suspense novel, first published in 1937 might be difficult to follow for readers who are not already familiar with Shakespeares The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince Denmark.

However, it is well worth reading, not only for the richly allusive mystery, but also for the characters who create and act out its tragedy. The author engraves his brittle, upper-class English in diamond-point prose. He etches their wit with acid. They are never dull. To misquote the Bard himself, Age cannot wither Inness characters, nor murder stale their witty dialogue.

For the length of the tragedy at least, the reader will inhabit the manor and precincts of Scamnum Court, principal seat of the Duke of Horton---It is a big place: two counties away it has a sort of little brother in Blenheim Palace.

After the second murder of the evening, C.I.D. Inspector John Appleby gives the reader his impression of the place, while searching through its corridors for the Duchess of Horton:

Moving about Scamnum at night, it seemed to Appleby, was like moving in a dream through some monstrously overgrown issue of Country Life. Great cubes of space, disconcertingly indeterminate in function--- were they rooms or passages? ---flowed past in the half-darkness with the intermittent coherence of distant music, now composed into order and proportion, now a vague and raw material for the architectonics of the imaginationHe recalled the great palaces --- now for the most part tenantless --- which the eighteenth century had seen rise, all weirdly of a piece, about Europe. Scamnum, he knew, was to be a different pattern; would reveal itself in the morning as being --- however augustly --- the home of an English gentleman and a familiar being. But now it was less a human dwelling than a dream-symbol of centuries of rule, a fantasy created from the tribute of ten thousand cottages long perished from the land.

Everything in Hamlet, Revenge! is done on a grand scale. The Duchess of Horton persuades her old friend, the Lord Chancellor of England to act the part of Polonius in her amateur production of Hamlet. Her husband is cast as Claudius, King of Denmark and she herself plays his Queen. Their daughter, Elizabeth is Ophelia. The greatest Shakespearean actor of the day plays the Melancholy Dane.

All of the plays characters are put on edge by a series of mysterious messages, culminating in a quotation from Macbeth, there shall be done a deed of dreadful note Then the Lord Chancellor is shot to death at the very instant in the play when his character is supposed to die by Hamlets sword.

Appleby is called in to solve a murder that was planned, deliberately and at obvious risk, to take place bang in the middle of a private performance of Hamlet.

The young C.I.D. Inspector is also charged with recovering vital State documents that the second-most important figure in British government had with him when he motored down to Scamnum Court to strut and fret upon the ducal stage. Until the very end of Hamlet, Revenge! the reader can never be sure if he or she is reading a murder mystery or a spy story.

Hamlet, Revenge! in my opinion is one of the top ten mysteries of the last century, reaching the same rarified heights as Sayerss The Nine Taylors.

It is much less known to American readers, possibly because of its authors richly allusive style. Innes was a Student of Christ Church, Oxford, from 1949 until his retirement in 1973. He was a Lecturer in English, and he did not talk down to readers of his detective fiction. Either they were familiar with the Bard, or they would miss out on half the enjoyment of Hamlet, Revenge!

I entirely agree with the other reviewers that this is a magnificent mystery. It has long been one of my favorites.

I would like to comment on another point, however: the physical book. I bought this edition because my old mass-market paperback was worn. On the last page of the new book it says "Made in the USA[;] Lexington, KY[;] 15 January 2010." The date is very close to when I ordered it, so I expect this is a "print to order" paperback. The printing is very clean and sharp, attractive and pleasing to the eye. Unfortunately, this edition contains a fair number of typos, which leads me to suspect that it was created by scanning an older edition, and that the software did not perfectly recognize the text. Or maybe the typos were in the old printed edition. They are not so frequent as to bother me, though I suppose they might bother others. I briefly kept track of them and found four in fourteen pages, to give an idea of the frequency.

It seems to me that the publishers could obtain an improved edition by soliciting corrections from readers. Anyway, it is a very interesting and worthwhile application of technology, making available a printed version of a book that otherwise might well be out of print.

It is amazing that this book was published in 1937 because as I just finished reading it in the very early stages of 2008, I couldn't believe how complex and intelligent this book is. I think it might be rough going if a reader is not at least a little bit familiar with Shakespeare's Hamlet, but it is still worth the effort. Innes was a remarkable writer, and his Inspector Appleby was marvelous! There are more than enough red herrings and blind alleys that Innes leads you down as you read this book. The murder at the huge manor house of Scanmum is irrevocably tied up with the play Hamlet, and it's up to Appleby to determine what is fact and what is fiction. He must try and find what appears to be an obscure motive, and he is up against a particularly ruthless and intelligent killer. This is an excellent classical mystery from the very early Golden Age, and I recommend it highly.