Death At The Chase

Sir John Appleby #24

by Michael Innes

When master sleuth, Appleby, leaps over a stile during a country stroll, he is apprehended by an irate Martyn Ashmore, owner of the land on which Appleby has unwittingly trespassed. But when the misunderstanding is cleared up, eccentric, aged Ashmore reveals that he is in fear for his life - once every year, someone attempts to murder him. Is it the French Resistance, or a younger Ashmore on the make? When Martyn dies, Appleby sets out to find who exactly is responsible.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, British Literature, Audiobook

182 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Michael Innes was the pseudonym of John Innes MacKintosh (J.I.M.) Stewart (J.I.M. Stewart).

He was born in Edinburgh, and educated at Edinburgh Academy and Oriel College, Oxford. He was Lecturer in English at the University of Leeds from 1930 - 1935, and spent the succeeding ten years as Jury Professor of English at the University of Adelaide, South Australia.

He returned to the United Kingdom in 1949, to become a Lecturer at the Queen's University of Belfast. In 1949 he became a Student (Fellow) of Christ Church, Oxford, becoming a Professor by the time of his retirement in 1973.

As J.I.M. Stewart he published a number of works of non-fiction, mainly critical studies of authors, including Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling, as well as about twenty works of fiction and a memoir, 'Myself and Michael Innes'.

As Michael Innes, he published numerous mystery novels and short story collections, most featuring the Scotland Yard detective John Appleby.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, it's true: I'm a fool for Sir John Appleby, Innes' series detective, even when he's not quite up to standard. But this is a good example of Innes' later period, when Sir John is retired from the police, and constantly getting involved with strange happenings in various stately homes. Out for a walk, he meets elderly Martyn Ashmore, who is convinced that representatives of the French resistance try to kill him once a year, on the anniversary of a massacre in their village by the Nazis during World War II. Appleby assumes possible dementia, until he himself is almost killed by an attempt on Ashmore's life. Meanwhile, Appleby's son Bobby, an aspiring novelist, shows up with a rowdy friend in tow, intent on persuading Ashmore to finance his nephew's marriage to a nightclub singer. Then things get really strange, but the older Appleby can figure them out.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe this really just deserves 3.5* but I thought that the balance between Appleby & his son Bobby was just right in this 25th entry in the series. Plus Martyn Ashmore was enjoyably eccentric (or was he mad as his family thought?).

[David Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Re-read in Jan 2021. I had no recollection of reading it before but my original review is below.
Michael Innes wrote dozens of books and they are a joy to read. Retired Metropoliton Police Commissioner Appleby is briefly held captive as a trespasser by an eccentric landowner with a persecution complex. Light and amusing, the text is filled with literary allusions and quotations. Writing it in 1970, the author does include some rather clunking hippy dialogue "man"! among the more Bertie Woosterish exclaimations of the younger characters. The plot is rather absurd at times but the fantasy element is an integral part of these stories. As usual I hadn't a clue.

[Keith Currie · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of Innes' later novels, a pleasant piece of whimsy, from a period when the author appears to have lost interest in matters of plot and plausibility, focusing instead on style and accidence.

A possibly mad old miser fears his death at the hands of former French Resistance fighters on one day every year. When a few days after the deadly date, he is found dead in suspicious circumstance, the retired Sir John Appleby follows a hunch that the cause of the old man's demise lies closer to home.

Amusing throughout, especially to lovers of vocabulary and syntax; the reader will learn that one does not need to be a taurophobe to wish to avoid tauromachia; the reader may also enjoy sentences like the following: 'But every now and then a twig snapped in the middle distance - just as in a novel when the author wants to turn on a spot of suspense.' I did laugh.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too many characters made it hard to follow as an audio book. Storyline wasn’t very engaging.

[Lila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Appleby encounters a complex sprawling family who don't get along as he sorts out motives. Writing is full of lovely literary allusions in the best British style.

[zoe clouthier · Rating 2 out of 5]

Made me realize that I don’t like mysteries

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

Death at the Chase (1970) by Michael Innes

It's a very long time indeed since I've read a Michael Innes novel, and I'd forgotten his extraordinary self-satisfied pomposity of narrative and the fact that it was for good reason that I'd never been able to make any headway with the non-mystery novels this Oxford don wrote under his real name, J.I.M. Stewart. If you want a flavour of the tone and exaggerated plundering of vocabulary, you could do worse than read the sections of Michael Innes parody interpolated by Dave Langford into our spoof disaster novel Earthdoom (1987; shortly to be reissued by those enterprising folks at DarkQuest Books). (Generally speaking Dave did the Innes parodies in that book, I did the McBain ones.)

In Death at the Chase the style does ease up a bit in places, usually when Bobby Appleby, son of series detective John Appleby, is taking centre stage in place of his father; but certainly the first few chapters read in themselves like a parody. This may have been because Innes realized he was having to stretch a short story's worth of plot quite extravagantly in order to fill out a novel, and thus resolved never to use one word when a score or more -- or preferably a few paragraphs -- would do every bit as well. The plot is certainly pretty simple. John Appleby, now Sir John, has retired from the force to enjoy rural splendour. He discovers that one of his neighbours, the eccentric Martyn Ashmore, believes that an attempt is made on his life once a year by vengeant members of the French Resistance, still enwrathed after all these years because he gave up information to the Nazis under torture. In due course Ashmore is indeed bumped off, but the solution to the mystery proves to lie a lot closer to home.

Still, at least this one's better than Appleby's End, memory of which still strikes a chill in my soul even decades after I read it . . .

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Sir John Appleby, retired Chief Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, thinks Martyn Ashmore, the lord of a neighboring manor, is suffering from senile delusions. Ashmore has accused Sir John of wanting to kill him. However, after a large stone block falls from a roof and the two men narrowly escape death, Sir John decides to look further.

"He discovers that Ashmore lives with a terrible guilt -- hi cracking under Nazi torture led to the massacre of many Resistance fighters -- and with a terrible threat -- each year on the anniversary of the massacre an attempt has been made on his life.

"When a murder does take place, Sir John is joined by his engaging undergraduate son Bobby in the investigation, which is set forth by Michal Innes with all his customary surprises and high spirits."
~~back cover

A carefully crafted mystery, with lots of motives, red herrings and hidden clues. The ending is revealed to be the product of carefully timed to & froing, as is so often the case in this subgenre. And I'm becoming less and less fond of a mystery I can't even take a wild guess at solving -- it strikes me as very unsportsmanlike.

[Rog Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought that I had read this before but perhaps not as it did not seem familiar. (Actually I had read it almost 30 years earlier.) This was first published in 1970 by which time in the series Sir John Appleby had retired from Scotland Yard. In this story Appleby's son, Bobby, plays a prominent role and is almost the main character. As ever there are eccentric characters and one has to believe that a Chief Constable would seek the help of a retired policeman and would interview witnesses without any thought for police procedures. Luckily I am happy to suspend disbelief and I enjoy the author's humour and almost surreal style of writing.

[Lucy Takeda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed Finn's sarcastic observances of Appleby ( which Appleby nails him on later). The novel involves a wealthy family in Appleby's neighborhood that do not get along, and are famous for being wealthy and possibly crazy. Appleby meets one of the clan when he goes hiking and trespasses. He also learns that this member of the family has a questionable involvement with the French resistance in WWII, and has someone attempting to kill him once a year! A great deal of the novel is about his son and the son's friends, one of which is related to the elderly rich guy. I enjoyed it, but not as much as books that had more of Appleby.

[Sally · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Appleby mystery by Michael Innes was set in Appleby's post-retirement days. It had a little of the flavor of Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster stories because of the antics of Appleby's college-aged son's college friend. The son himself is not as silly as Bertie Wooster, but the college friend was. Although I wouldn't say I "really liked" this book, but I enjoyed it a bit more than some of the other Appleby stories. It was a good mystery and the number of literary references, for which Michael Innes is notable, were not as excessive as they sometimes are.