Reading the Detectives discussion
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Appleby's End
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Appleby's End (The Inspector Appleby Mysteries Book 10) by Michael Innes (June/July 23)
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For once I got a little ahead instead of toiling in the wake of the speedy readers in this group! Heading over to the spoilers thread.
This is my first Innes - & I enjoyed the (view spoiler)My copy only 189 pages, but it is quite a challenging read & it is going to take me a few days to get through it.
Yes, he certainly keeps you on your toes!
Never read any of Innes´ works, so not sure if I should read the tenth in the series or better start with the first one?
It is fine to start here—in fact, probably better to start here than at the beginning. His first several books are rather bloated affairs, and then he goes off on a weird fantasy tangent during World War II. The stories are all freestanding episodes so his books can be read standalone. There is very little development of the central character, Appleby, and there aren’t plot threads that run from one book to the next. This one is a good starting point though because it introduces a character who continues to be in the background in Appleby’s life thereafter.
Thanks Abigail! :)
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Semi-supernatural stories were very popular in the Victorian era; even Thomas Hardy dabbled in them in his Wessex Tales. Poe, Wilkie Collins a few others. At the more serious end, a lot of gentleman-scholars liked to collect local folklore and superstitions. I assume, though, that Innes is thinking of a pulpier class of novel, like Marie Corelli’s books.
I started this too, and yes, it´s quirky and dark.
If it were not that (view spoiler) I would view this as a rather classy dream-sequence. The names of the villages are beyond belief, although the surnames, even the odder ones, are real - Heyhoe, and Shrubsole, have both been in the England Women's cricket team, though this must be a coincidence ... And I went to school with a Rainbird. I enjoyed the fact that the vicar is called Smith ...
English surnames and place-names are so much quirky fun! As are the spoof versions of them. I just finished reading an Angela Thirkell novel, The Brandons, and she has some hilarious ones, like the villages of Winter Overcotes and Little Misfit.
Many years ago, when I worked in the Home Office, we had a desk copy of the Police Almanack (I think that was its name) which listed villages in County/Police Force areas, by station. I used to browse through it in times of stress. Dorset was particularly rich in 'places who could be in a romantic novel', such as Langton Maltravers, and his sweetheart Winfrith Newburgh. Ryme Intriseca would fit into this book, although one might shake one's head over the unlikelihood of anywhere having such a name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of... lists some of them, but I think there were some hamlets that didn't make Wikipedia.
Lovely ones! Some can sound like literary pseudonyms too. I have a friend who grew up in New Jersey, USA, and said if she ever wrote a novel she’d publish it under the name Elizabeth Seaport.
I spent a lot of time in the '50s exploring England and Wales by motorcycle and remember 'Castle Combe' the prettiest village in England (I think it has now been beaten by 'Bourton on the Water' and 'Sixpenny Handley' supposedly the ugliest at the time!
Reading the Detectives
Books mentioned in this topic
Wessex Tales (other topics)Appleby's End (other topics)
Appleby's End was the name of the station where Detective Inspector John Appleby got off the train from Scotland Yard. But that was not the only coincidence. Everything that happened from then on related back to stories by Ranulph Raven, Victorian novelist - animals were replaced by marble effigies, someone received a tombstone telling him when he would die, and a servant was found buried up to his neck in snow, dead. Why did Ranulph Raven's mysterious descendants make such a point of inviting Appleby to spend the night at their house?
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