There Came Both Mist and Snow [Large Print] [Paperback]

Michael Innes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1991

Stunning Belrive Priory, consisting of a mansion, park and medieval ruins, is surrounded by the noise and neon signs of its gaudy neighbours - a cotton-mill, a brewey and a main road. Nevertheless, Arthur Ferryman is pleased to return for a family Christmas, but is shocked to discover that his cousins have taken up a new pastime - pistol-shooting. Inspector Appleby arrives on the scene when one of Ferryman's cousins is found shot dead in the study, in a mystery built on family antagonisms.

--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

• Paperback: 287 pages
• Publisher: Magna Large Print Books (April 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 185057863X
• ISBN-13: 978-1850578635
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,365,182 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comedy of Terrors  alternate title, January 12, 2003

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: There Came Both Mist and Snow (Paperback)

"There Came both Mist and Snow" (1941---also titled "Comedy of Terrors") is very uncharacteristic Appleby in that he doesn't show up until the middle of the story. This novel is basically a British comedy of manners, thinly disguised as a whodunit. It is narrated in the first person by Arthur, one of the suspects who happens to be a writer:

The aristocratic Arthur and his relatives gather for the Christmas holiday at Belrive Priory, the ancient family seat in the north of England. Much to their dismay, they learn that the current owner of Belrive, Arthur's cousin Basil, is planning to sell his estate to a brewer.

Basil, the seventh Baronet of Belrive Priory, needs the money to fund an expedition to the Arctic.

When Basil's nephew Wilfred is shot, every one wonders whether Basil had been the real target---and whether there would be a second, fatal attempt on the seventh Baronet's life.

Inspector John Appleby happens to be a guest at dinner on the night of the shooting. The local constable is only too happy to turn the crime over to the young CID inspector, and so Appleby enters the fray with Arthur serving as his Watson and family historian.

Michael Innes (pseudonym for John Innes Mackintosh Stewart) has out-Agatha'd Christie in this early Appleby. Each character is suspected in turn, and each has a plausible motive and opportunity. The story's climax is very typical Christie, wherein all of the suspects gather in the drawing room, and each explains his or her version of the `night of terror.' There are a couple of false confessions, and finally Appleby explains ALL.

The mystery itself is very complex, and the solution rather contrived. Read "There Came both Mist and Snow" for its highly literate prose--Appleby solves the mystery only after he recalls a verse from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (hence the book's title)--and for its in-depth characterizations.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Alternate title: "Comedy of Terrors", April 6, 2007

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: There Came Both Mist and Snow (Paperback)

"There Came both Mist and Snow" (1941---also titled "Comedy of Terrors") is very uncharacteristic Appleby in that he doesn't show up until the middle of the story. This novel is basically a British comedy of manners, thinly disguised as a whodunit. It is narrated in the first person by Arthur, one of the suspects who happens to be a writer:

The aristocratic Arthur and his relatives gather for the Christmas holiday at Belrive Priory, the ancient family seat in the north of England. Much to their dismay, they learn that the current owner of Belrive, Arthur's cousin Basil, is planning to sell his estate to a brewer.

Basil, the seventh Baronet of Belrive Priory, needs the money to fund an expedition to the Arctic.

When Basil's nephew Wilfred is shot, every one wonders whether Basil had been the real target---and whether there would be a second, fatal attempt on the seventh Baronet's life.

Inspector John Appleby happens to be a guest at dinner on the night of the shooting. The local constable is only too happy to turn the crime over to the young CID inspector, and so Appleby enters the fray with Arthur serving as his Watson and family historian.

Michael Innes (pseudonym for John Innes Mackintosh Stewart) has out-Agatha'd Christie in this early Appleby. Each character is suspected in turn, and each has a plausible motive and opportunity. The story's climax is very typical Christie, wherein all of the suspects gather in the drawing room, and each explains his or her version of the `night of terror.' There are a couple of false confessions, and finally Appleby explains ALL.

The mystery itself is very complex, and the solution rather contrived. Read "There Came both Mist and Snow" for its highly literate prose--Appleby solves the mystery only after he recalls a verse from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (hence the book's title)--and for its in-depth characterizations.

5.0 out of 5 stars Top-Flight for those with a taste for it, February 9, 2011

By 

drkhimxz (Freehold, NJ, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: There Came Both Mist and Snow (Inspector Appleby) (Kindle Edition)

I have been enjoying Michael Innes at least since this novel was publisheed (1940). He is one of that group of British literary figures who turned to the mystery story in the 1920's (e.g., Dorthy Sayers) and for some three decades put that nation in the forefront of the literate detective novel. Innes here gives us a notably idiosyncratic family, most of whom are prone to over-indulgence in literary badinage and all of whom are given to excessive play acting in presenting themselves to others. When one of the kin is shot with Inspector Appleby at the door awaiting admission as an invited guest, he is stirred into action and we are let in for a good time. FAIR WARNING. Not every reader will take to this kind of verbal sparring and intricate puzzle.