Operation Pax [Hardcover]

Michael Innes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 28, 1974

A two-bit con-man is thrown in at the deep end as a desperate hunt takes place in Oxford, in this gripping tale whose thrilling climax takes place in the vaults of the Bodeleian.

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

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Highly ingenious...all sorts of delicious nostalgia-making detail about Oxford .... -- Observer --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of 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, 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

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Littlehampton Book Services Ltd; New impression edition (March 28, 1974)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0575015322
• ISBN-13: 978-0575015326
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,790,038 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Alternate title: The Paper Thunderbolt, November 9, 2004

By 

E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Operation Pax (Hardcover)

Sir John Appleby, Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police only shows up every now and then in "Operation Pax" to tidy up the plot or rescue his sister, Jane from various predicaments. The main narrator is Albert Routh, a seedy little conman who cheats housewives out of shillings and pence. When he takes a turn on his two-stroke motorcycle toward the sleepy village of Milton Porcorum, he never dreams that by nightfall he will be the most hunted man in England.

Jane and her fiancé, Geoffrey are both students at Oxford when Geoffrey goes missing. A professor of Art History also discovers that his fiancée and her child have vanished, and a posh asylum for alcoholics near Milton Porcorum seems to be involved with the misplaced fiancés. Conman Albert Routh is temporarily incarcerated at the asylum, which is also a center for biological research, and he escapes with a piece of paper that is the only copy of a mysterious formula.

Now the hunt begins.

This book has some of the best chase sequences in all of Innes, including the surreal climax in the vast subterranean stacks of the Bodleian Library by night. It also has some of his wickedest villains who want nothing less than to induce of the lions of humanity to lie down with its lambs. They of course, will remain its only lions.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best chase scenes in the genre, July 31, 2006

By 

E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Operation Pax (Hardcover)

Sir John Appleby, Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police only shows up every now and then in "The Paper Thunderbolt" to tidy up the plot or rescue his sister, Jane from various predicaments. The main narrator is Albert Routh, a seedy little conman who cheats housewives out of shillings and pence. When he takes a turn on his two-stroke motorcycle toward the sleepy village of Milton Porcorum, he never dreams that by nightfall he will be the most hunted man in England.

Jane and her fiancé, Geoffrey are both students at Oxford when Geoffrey goes missing. A professor of Art History also discovers that his fiancée and her child have vanished, and a posh asylum for alcoholics near Milton Porcorum seems to be involved with the misplaced fiancés. Conman Albert Routh is temporarily incarcerated at the asylum, which is also a center for biological research, and he escapes with a piece of paper that is the only copy of a mysterious formula.

Now the hunt begins.

This book has some of the best chase sequences in all of Innes, including the surreal climax in the vast subterranean stacks of the Bodleian Library by night. It also has some of his wickedest villains who want nothing less than to induce of the lions of humanity to lie down with its lambs. They of course, will remain its only lions.

Note: the alternate title for this Appleby mystery is "The Paper Thunderbolt."

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Alternate title: "The Paper Thunderbolt.", July 23, 2006

By 

E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Sir John Appleby, Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police only shows up every now and then in "The Paper Thunderbolt" to tidy up the plot or rescue his sister, Jane from various predicaments. The main narrator is Albert Routh, a seedy little conman who cheats housewives out of shillings and pence. When he takes a turn on his two-stroke motorcycle toward the sleepy village of Milton Porcorum, he never dreams that by nightfall he will be the most hunted man in England.

Jane and her fiancé, Geoffrey are both students at Oxford when Geoffrey goes missing. A professor of Art History also discovers that his fiancée and her child have vanished, and a posh asylum for alcoholics near Milton Porcorum seems to be involved with the misplaced fiancés. Conman Albert Routh is temporarily incarcerated at the asylum, which is also a center for biological research, and he escapes with a piece of paper that is the only copy of a mysterious formula.

Now the hunt begins.

This book has some of the best chase sequences in all of Innes, including the surreal climax in the vast subterranean stacks of the Bodleian Library by night. It also has some of his wickedest villains who want nothing less than to induce of the lions of humanity to lie down with its lambs. They of course, will remain its only lions.

Note: the alternate title for this Appleby mystery is "The Paper Thunderbolt."