The Open House [Mass Market Paperback]

Michael Innes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1982

When Inspector Appleby's car breaks down on a deserted road one dark night, he happens upon an imposing mansion, whose windows are all illuminated. His sense of curiosity gets the better of him when he discovers that the front door is wide open, and he gets a funny feeling of being watched as he wanders round this splendid house, looking for signs of life. When he finds an elaborate feast laid out, he wonders who is expected...

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

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 an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (October 1, 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140036636
• ISBN-13: 978-0140036633
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,628,685 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Allusive, melodramatic English Manor mystery, April 3, 2004

By 

E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Open House (Hardcover)

"The Open House" (1972) is one of my favorite Sir John Appleby mysteries--a slightly hallucinatory murder mystery set in what at first appears to be a fully furnished, but abandoned English manor. When Sir John stumbles across the house after his car breaks down in the middle of a very dark night, its front doors are open wide, all of the lights are on, and there is a cold collation set out in the dining room, along with a bottle of champagne on ice. In the bedroom, there is even a hot water bottle tucked under the bedclothes--and it is still warm.

Sir John, retired Assistant Commissioner of New Scotland Yard, can't help feeling like Goldilocks in 'The Three Bears' when no one answers his shouted requests for assistance.

Michael Innes (J.I.M. Stewart) has been compared to James in his use of allusion and his exquisitely drawn characterizations, done mainly through dialogue. Also Jamesian is his loving, detailed description of Ledward Park. With all of the description and dialogue, you might assume there isn't much action but Appleby, in spite of his claims to be elderly involves himself in a couple of rousing chases and fights, one in an octagonal room that is completely lined with mirrors.

The plot is complicated by two sets of villains, but Sir John sorts everything out with his usual élan. South American politics, a multitude of heirs, an outrageous butler, and a false marriage, plus two accidental pummelings of a perfectly blameless rector are explained away by breakfast. In fact, Sir John toddles off with the rector, whom he had twice mistaken for a villain, and clarifies ALL in the best tradition of British Golden Age mysteries.

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. "The Open House" is perfect in its class, and you will also learn quite a bit about Carolingian architecture.