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White Nights by Ann Cleeves (Shetland #2) (August/Sept 25)
By Susan · 29 posts · 12 views
By Susan · 29 posts · 12 views
last updated Sep 04, 2025 12:17PM
What Members Thought
At the beginning I found this somewhat disjointed and difficult to understand. Once I got further into it I knew what was going on, but it was so slow going. It is a book that you need to concentrate on, as there are so many characters involved. Maybe it was just me in the wrong frame of mind, but I got to the point where I really didn’t care who killed who and how. At least four of the characters were so alike and the others were females who only had minor roles.
This is the last book by this a ...more
This is the last book by this a ...more
Michael Innes' plots are always convoluted and baroque in construction, but Appleby - as ever - seems to sort out the solution while not appearing to do anything much except think. Innes is a bit of an acquired taste: his writing is full of literary jokes and flamboyant verbiage (never use one word when five or six will do instead) and there's a tendency for the action to happen off-stage. And to be absolutely truthful, this wasn't one of his very best, so I wouldn't recommend starting with it.
...more
Oct 28, 2016
John Frankham
rated it
it was amazing
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review of another edition
Shelves:
crime-detective
Just as enjoyable as a re-read in 2019!
Inspector Appleby, retired after his marriage, is drawn into solving the country house death of the last surviving Dromio triplet, whose hands are deliberately burnt in a fireplace fire immediately after his murder. Why?
Much of the fun is in the exasperation of the detective in charge, Insp Hyland, who is so off the pace. Good combination of professional and yokel characters, as usual.
Witty and erudite, this plot, and the Dromio characters of course, pay ho ...more
Inspector Appleby, retired after his marriage, is drawn into solving the country house death of the last surviving Dromio triplet, whose hands are deliberately burnt in a fireplace fire immediately after his murder. Why?
Much of the fun is in the exasperation of the detective in charge, Insp Hyland, who is so off the pace. Good combination of professional and yokel characters, as usual.
Witty and erudite, this plot, and the Dromio characters of course, pay ho ...more
Appleby has left Scotland Yard following his marriage but still gets talked into helping the local police inspector when murder strikes the Dromio family.
While this plot is convoluted in typical Innes fashion, this 11th entry in the series is more of a straight-forward police procedural than several of the previous books. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, I found this one of the more entertaining books so far.
While this plot is convoluted in typical Innes fashion, this 11th entry in the series is more of a straight-forward police procedural than several of the previous books. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, I found this one of the more entertaining books so far.
Had it not been so well written, I would have downsized my rating of this mystery, given the implausibility and twists and turns of the plot. The labyrinth in the garden provides the perfect metaphor for a very what I found rather a dead end.
I think I would have liked this one better if the ending had not been excessively complicated and downright loony if not improbable.
Oct 08, 2023
Elizabeth Williams
marked it as to-read
