Can't get enough of the Appleby series. The only negative thing was the disturbingly creepy cover. ( )

As is common with Appleby novels, we have an English rural setting populated with traditional types, but improbabilities and whimsy predominate. Here, Miss Pringle, a moderately successful mystery writer, encounters what appears to be the epitome of an English gentleman in a first-class railway carriage, reading one of her own mysteries. This gentleman, General Bulkington, starts asking Miss Pringle about the possibility of their collaborating on a detective tale--except Miss Pringle thinks he actually wants her to come up with a good way to murder his neighbor. That same evening, at the London dinner of a detective writer society, Sir John Appleby, the guest of honor, hears a similar story from another mystery writer.

This mystery is something of an amuse-bouche, in that nothing very serious ever happens. Having read the previous 26, I'm now thoroughly accustomed to not knowing what to expect in any of Innes's books, and to letting the absurdity unfold (here we get, for example, an unfriendly billy goat in a midnight garden). ( )

A very amusing late Appleby story; read it clean through very quickly and enjoyed it a great deal. Some good meta-detective-fiction bits, too. ( )

A later and lighter effort by Michael Innes. This is his only book where the protagonist is a female writer of detective novels. Appleby is, coincidentally, on hand for the denouement. The new word is "dyslogistic".

Innes appears to have devoted very little effort to the murder plot, choosing to focus his attention rather on the writing of the scenes in the church and the various altercations with the local equestrian gentry. These scenes are enjoyable but not as extravagantly funny as in earlier works. ( )

Clever language, but dated ( )