Sheiks and Adders

Michael Innes

ISBN 10: 0140065202 / ISBN 13: 9780140065206

Editore: Penguin Crime, 1982

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Sheiks and Adders ? Michael Innes (Penguin Crime, 1982) ISBN: 0140065202 ? Condition: Good ? Sold by Crappy Old Books Welcome to the country-house fête where Britain keeps its upper lip stiff with sponge cake and raffles?and where Michael Innes casually parks a snake among the bunting. Sheiks and Adders is late-period Appleby: urbane mischief, civilized peril, and a mystery so politely staged you?ll almost curtsy at the corpse. Sir John Appleby (retired, alas only in payroll) finds himself amid tea urns, white elephants, and one very glamorous Middle Eastern guest whose presence turns the parish green into an international incident with a gazebo. Expect the following: a marquee flapping with rumours, a ?local exhibit? that hisses inconveniently, security men who look as if they?re about to interview the Victoria sponge, and a scattering of grandees who have nothing to hide except everything. Someone collapses. Something valuable vanishes. The words ?adder bite? slither into conversation with indecent haste. Appleby, who has met both reptiles and committees, suspects showmanship: the snake is décor; the danger is human; the whole affair smells faintly of hand cream and fraud. Innes lays his clues like cucumber sandwiches?transparent until you notice the extra layer. The humour is dry as parish sherry; the satire of the well-bred and ill-intentioned is as gentle as a rapier. There are whispered plots about oil, diplomacy, kidnap, and?worse?fundraising targets. Watch for the tiny detail in the fête timetable, the too-helpful volunteer, the exhibit that moves when it shouldn?t, and the motive nobody mentions because it?s embarrassingly ordinary. By the end, Appleby tidies the table, restores the raffle, and reveals that the true adder was never in the grass but on the guest list. ?Condition: Good? at Crappy Old Books means exactly what you hope: a veteran paperback with a respectable spine-crease, pages ready to turn without shedding clues, and a cover that?s seen a bus seat or two and remains cheerfully unkidnapped. It?s the sort of Good that says ?read me in the garden and mind the wasps.? Buy it for the suave puzzle, keep it for the sly grin, and shelve it where it can smirk at your more earnest thrillers. Crappy Old Books: purveyors of lightly weathered crime?no venom, just a pleasantly toxic wit. 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: Sheiks and Adders
• Editore: Penguin Crime
• Data di pubblicazione: 1982
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0140065202
• ISBN 13: 9780140065206
• Rilegatura: Paperback
• Condizione: Good

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

Used book

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.