Readers that like Patricia Highsmith, Nicholas Blake, Cyril Hare, Mary Fitt and Josephine Tey will like the intelligent, deftly written, and short mysteries of Michael Innes. This light 1968 whodunnit finds series hero Sir John Appleby in retirement from Scotland Yard.
In this novel, Sir John has an odd dinner with a new neighbor who unaccountably presses hi m to examine the elaborate electrical system that ran a recent outdoor lightshow on the grounds of the estate. In the operations center they discover a corpse. This, however, does not stop the operations center being dismantled for a charity fete to be held on the same grounds the next day. Nothing stops the traditional village festival on the estate, after all, lest the meaning of âthis green and sceptered isleâ be lost forever.
The action focuses on the-pain-in-the-neck family of the owner and unfolding of incidents. The families are well-drawn as athletic parents who are philistines worried that their bookworm children will develop imaginations. Innes is a writer for irredeemably bookish people.
In this novel, Sir John has an odd dinner with a new neighbor who unaccountably presses hi m to examine the elaborate electrical system that ran a recent outdoor lightshow on the grounds of the estate. In the operations center they discover a corpse. This, however, does not stop the operations center being dismantled for a charity fete to be held on the same grounds the next day. Nothing stops the traditional village festival on the estate, after all, lest the meaning of âthis green and sceptered isleâ be lost forever.
The action focuses on the-pain-in-the-neck family of the owner and unfolding of incidents. The families are well-drawn as athletic parents who are philistines worried that their bookworm children will develop imaginations. Innes is a writer for irredeemably bookish people.
