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A Use of Riches
Art is very much part of Rupert Craine's life. He is a banker and country squire, but also a connoisseur and collector of art. His beautiful and wealthy wife, Jill, is the widow of John Arnander, an artist of genius killed in Italy in World War II. The Craines live happily on a comfortable country estate with Jill's twelve- and eleven-year-old sons by Arnander and their own two young children. As Jill remarks, an almost Edwardian order reigns in the household. "Of course," she says, "none of it may last."
That afternoon she has received a cable from an old acquaintance, an Italian marchesa. It seems that Arnander fathered an illegitimate son whom the archesa has been looking after. She can no longer do so and wants Jill to come and arrange the boy's future. The Crains hasten to Italy, Rupert going along to the preliminary interview with the marchesa, as he is suspicous that there may not really be an Arnander child, that this is a ruse to extract money.
The truth revealed to him by the marchesa is shattering, and the quintessentially civilized Craines find themselves plunged into an increasingly bizarre drama.
That afternoon she has received a cable from an old acquaintance, an Italian marchesa. It seems that Arnander fathered an illegitimate son whom the archesa has been looking after. She can no longer do so and wants Jill to come and arrange the boy's future. The Crains hasten to Italy, Rupert going along to the preliminary interview with the marchesa, as he is suspicous that there may not really be an Arnander child, that this is a ruse to extract money.
The truth revealed to him by the marchesa is shattering, and the quintessentially civilized Craines find themselves plunged into an increasingly bizarre drama.
245 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1957
1 person is currently reading
23 people want to read
About the author
J.I.M. Stewart
66 books9 followersFull name: John Innes MacKintosh Stewart
Published mysteries under the pen name of Michael Innes.
Stewart was the son of Elizabeth Jane (née Clark) and John Stewart of Nairn. His father was a lawyer and director of Education in the city of Edinburgh. Stewart attended Edinburgh Academy, where Robert Louis Stevenson had been a pupil for a short time, and later studied English literature at Oriel College, Oxford. In 1929 he went to Vienna to study psychoanalysis. He was lecturer in English at the University of Leeds from 1930 to 1935, and then became Jury Professor of English in the University of Adelaide, South Australia.
He returned to the United Kingdom to become Lecturer in English at the Queen's University of Belfast from 1946 to 1948. In 1949 he became a Student of Christ Church, Oxford. By the time of his retirement in 1973, he was a professor of the university.
Using the pseudonym Michael Innes, he wrote about forty crime novels between 1936 and 1986. Innes's detective novels are playfully highbrow, rich in allusions to English literature and to Renaissance art. Sinuous, flexible and effortlessly elegant, Stewart's prose is refreshingly free of all influence by Strunk & White. The somewhat ponderous writing style and analysis of character, particularly in the early novels, is frequently Henry Jamesian. The best-known of Innes's detective creations is Sir John Appleby (originally Inspector John Appleby) of Scotland Yard, who is a feature of multiple books. Other novels also feature the amateur but nonetheless effective sleuth, painter and Royal Academician, Charles Honeybath. The two detectives meet in "Appleby and Honeybath." Some of the later stories feature Appleby's son Bobby as sleuth.
Stewart also wrote studies of Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, and Thomas Hardy. His last publication was his autobiography Myself and Michael Innes (1987).
In 2007, his estate transferred all of Stewart's copyrights and other legal rights to Owatonna Media.
Published mysteries under the pen name of Michael Innes.
Stewart was the son of Elizabeth Jane (née Clark) and John Stewart of Nairn. His father was a lawyer and director of Education in the city of Edinburgh. Stewart attended Edinburgh Academy, where Robert Louis Stevenson had been a pupil for a short time, and later studied English literature at Oriel College, Oxford. In 1929 he went to Vienna to study psychoanalysis. He was lecturer in English at the University of Leeds from 1930 to 1935, and then became Jury Professor of English in the University of Adelaide, South Australia.
He returned to the United Kingdom to become Lecturer in English at the Queen's University of Belfast from 1946 to 1948. In 1949 he became a Student of Christ Church, Oxford. By the time of his retirement in 1973, he was a professor of the university.
Using the pseudonym Michael Innes, he wrote about forty crime novels between 1936 and 1986. Innes's detective novels are playfully highbrow, rich in allusions to English literature and to Renaissance art. Sinuous, flexible and effortlessly elegant, Stewart's prose is refreshingly free of all influence by Strunk & White. The somewhat ponderous writing style and analysis of character, particularly in the early novels, is frequently Henry Jamesian. The best-known of Innes's detective creations is Sir John Appleby (originally Inspector John Appleby) of Scotland Yard, who is a feature of multiple books. Other novels also feature the amateur but nonetheless effective sleuth, painter and Royal Academician, Charles Honeybath. The two detectives meet in "Appleby and Honeybath." Some of the later stories feature Appleby's son Bobby as sleuth.
Stewart also wrote studies of Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, and Thomas Hardy. His last publication was his autobiography Myself and Michael Innes (1987).
In 2007, his estate transferred all of Stewart's copyrights and other legal rights to Owatonna Media.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 3, 2017
Some superb writing in an understated thought-provoking tale set post WW 2 in Italy finds our protagonists wrestling with questions about great art and the muses that inspire them. Craine is a banker and art lover/connoisseur whose world is turned upside down by an unforeseen event which upsets his formerly orderly world. J.I.M. Stewart masterfully details how he comes to terms with his changed circumstances.
March 25, 2025
Again 3.5.
Very agreeable.
Very agreeable.
September 4, 2021
Perhaps most interesting is Stewart choice of narrative structure. The novel might have been more interesting had it been told from different viewpoints from unreliable narrators. That is not what we got from 1957 though. Stewart was a prodigious writer and an effort as described above might have been too much to ask.
May 11, 2024
The Use of Riches seems to me to suffer from the length of its tail - or perhaps from a lack of new ideas to give the last third more bite. There is no doubt of the author's engagement with what may seem a tortuous plot, but there is little steam left in the tail.
January 16, 2012
A British banker travels to Italy to meet his wife's first husband's illegitimate son and arrange care for him. What he discovers there changes his life in a way he could not have imagined.
J.I.M. Stewart was a British professor of English. His novels are elegant, quiet stories, focusing mainly on school life, the art world, or upper middle class manners. He also wrote the marvelous Appleby mysteries under the name Michael Innes. If you enjoy wonderful, literate writing, and you happen to come across one of his novels - don't pass it up!
J.I.M. Stewart was a British professor of English. His novels are elegant, quiet stories, focusing mainly on school life, the art world, or upper middle class manners. He also wrote the marvelous Appleby mysteries under the name Michael Innes. If you enjoy wonderful, literate writing, and you happen to come across one of his novels - don't pass it up!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews