Lord Mullions Secrets

Michael Innes

ISBN 10: 0140065210 / ISBN 13: 9780140065213

Editore: Penguin Books, 1983

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Lord Mullion?s Secrets (1983) by Michael Innes (Penguin Books), ISBN: 0140065210 Condition: Good (as sold by Crappy Old Books) Step into the world of Lord Mullion?s Secrets , where the countryside is picturesque, the upper classes are impeccably mannered, and absolutely everyone is either concealing something or about to trip over it. Michael Innes ? that connoisseur of the gently outrageous, the academically mischievous, and the murderously well-bred ? invites you to a mystery that behaves like a drawing-room comedy right up until the moment it remembers it?s also a crime novel. This is Innes territory: a place where wit is as sharp as the letter opener, conversations come with hidden trapdoors, and the atmosphere is thick with the particular English conviction that nothing truly serious should happen until after tea. Secrets, of course, are the currency here ? personal secrets, family secrets, political secrets, the kind of secrets so ancient they?ve developed their own dust. And then there are the secrets people tell themselves, which are often the most expensive kind. Expect a plot with elegant turns and that Innes habit of making you feel like you?re reading something both comfortingly traditional and faintly sideways. The book plays with genre like a cat with a string: it can do the cosy ?village with a dark heart? thing, but it also nudges at bigger questions ? about class, power, reputation, and the strange theatre of British respectability. Everyone is acting, even when they?re trying not to. Especially then. If you?ve never read Innes, here?s the pitch: imagine a classic whodunnit that went to university, got a bit too fond of cleverness, and came back with a suitcase full of references and a grin. There?s a sense of intelligence at play ? not the smug kind that wants to show off, but the playful kind that keeps changing the angle of the lamp so the shadows look different. You?re not just solving a puzzle; you?re watching someone enjoy constructing it. And because it?s an Innes mystery, you can safely assume the real villain might be human weakness ? vanity, greed, fear, pride ? but presented in a very tidy outfit, with good posture and a plausible alibi. Condition: Good , which is precisely the state in which a Penguin crime paperback should exist: slightly rubbed at the corners like it?s been carried in a raincoat pocket, cracked open on trains, and read in bursts between other people?s scandalous conversations. Sold by Crappy Old Books , naturally ? because nothing says ?literate murder and aristocratic awkwardness? like a second-hand copy that looks like it?s seen things. Possibly the very things Lord Mullion is keeping secret . Perfect for readers who like their detective fiction clever, cosy-adjacent, and quietly barbed , with a side order of social satire and the lingering sense that the most dangerous weapon in the room is not a knife? but a perfectly phrased remark. THIS BOOK BEARS THE CRAPPY OLD BOOKS STAMP. IF THAT IS UNDESIRABLE PLEASE DO NOT BUY THIS. THE STAMP MARKS WHICH IS USUALLY TO THE FRONT AND BACK INNER PAGES SAYS SOLD BY CRAPPY OLD BOOKS WITH WEB SITE URL. IT IN NO WAY DEMINISHED FROM THE READING. IF YOU WANT A PRISTINE BOOK, PLEASE FIND ANOTHER BOOK IN BETTER CONDITION SOMEWHERE ELSE.

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Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Lord Mullions Secrets
• Editore: Penguin Books
• Data di pubblicazione: 1983
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0140065210
• ISBN 13: 9780140065213
• Rilegatura: Paperback
• Condizione: Good

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

Painter Charles Honeybath is hired by his old schoolfellow, Lord Mullion, to paint a portrait of his wife but becomes involved in a strange series of intriguing puzzles

L'autore

Born in Edinburgh in 1906, the son of the city's Director of Education, John Innes Mackintosh Stewart wrote a highly successful series of mystery stories under the pseudonym Michael Innes. Innes was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, where he was presented with the Matthew Arnold Memorial Prize and named a Bishop Frazer's scholar. After graduation he went to Vienna, to study Freudian psychoanalysis for a year and following his first book, an edition of Florio's translation of Montaigne, was offered a lectureship at the University of Leeds. In 1932 he married Margaret Hardwick, a doctor, and they subsequently had five children including Angus, also a novelist. The year 1936 saw Innes as Professor of English at the University of Adelaide, during which tenure he wrote his first mystery story, 'Death at the President's Lodging'. With his second, 'Hamlet Revenge', Innes firmly established his reputation as a highly entertaining and cultivated writer. After the end of World War II, Innes returned to the UK and spent two years at Queen's University, Belfast where in 1949 he wrote the 'Journeying Boy', a novel notable for the richly comedic use of an Irish setting. He then settled down as a Reader in English Literature at Christ Church, Oxford, from which he retired in 1973. His most famous character is 'John Appleby', who inspired a penchant for donnish detective fiction that lasts to this day. Innes's other well-known character is 'Honeybath', the painter and rather reluctant detective, who first appeared in 1975 in 'The Mysterious Commission'. The last novel, 'Appleby and the Ospreys', was published in 1986, some eight years before his death in 1994. 'A master - he constructs a plot that twists and turns like an electric eel: it gives you shock upon shock and you cannot let go.' - Times Literary Supplement.