Michael Innes: Appleby's Answer (USA 2002)

From the Publisher:
Author of detective novels, Priscilla Pringle, is pleased to find that she is sharing a railway compartment with a gentleman who happens to be reading one of her books - Murder in the Cathedral. He is military officer, Captain Bulkington, who recognises Miss Pringle and offers her GBP500 to collaborate on a detective novel. To everyone's surprise, Miss Pringle is rather taken with Captain Bulkington - is she out of her depth?

Michael Innes: Appleby's Answer. An Inspector Appleby Mystery. House of Stratus, ISBN: 1842327143 (July, 2002), 190 p., $11.50.

Michael Innes: Appleby's Answer (1985)

From the Publisher:
IS THE FAMOUS MYSTERY WRITER UNWITTINGLY ORCHESTRATING AN ACTUAL MURDER?
When Priscilla Pringle, a well-known writer of clerical murder mysteries (heedless of T. S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral is one of her tomes), learns that the last rector of a West Country village died under questionable circumstances, she decides to see if there's material for a new book. In addition, Priscilla's curiosity is piqued by Captain Bulkington, a peculiar resident of the village who is seeking her advice on an ingenious murder device for a novel he may be writing. As the maniacal plot twists accumulate and Miss Pringle becomes aware of the deadly reality, Sir John Appleby, retired Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, tries to help unravel the lethal puzzle. Fast-paced, literate, and gently satirical, this suspense novel is Michael Innes at his delightfully urbane best.

"Innes fans will find the familiar mixture of elegance, cleverness and the near-preposterous, and will be more than pleased." -- San Francisco Examiner
"Delightfully plotted and a joy to read" -- Daily Mail

Michael Innes: Appleby's Answer. Penguin, ISBN: 0140039813 (October, 1985), 157 p., £1.95, $3.50.

Michael Innes: Appleby's Answer (UK 1973)

From the Publisher:
In this novel Michael Innes's central character, Miss Priscilla Pringle, is herself a well-known writer of detective stories (Poison at the Parsonage, Revenge at the Rectory, and even -- regardless of T. S. Eliot -- Murder in the Cathedral). And as her titles suggest, she has a fondness for crimes that are associated with the Church (her late father was an Archdeacon): so when she learns that the last Rector of Long Canings and Gibber Porcorum died in mysterious circumstances she is soon off to this remote corner of the West Country to make an enquiry or two. Who knows, there may be material for her next book here.

Moreover, she has another and even deeper reason for visiting Long Canings. The novel has opened in a railway compartment where she received a quite embarrassing proposal from a very odd fellow-traveller who suggested a form of literary collaboration: he will pay her no less a sum than £500 for an ingenious murder plot. It is all too clear to Miss Pringle that he has in mind not a fictional but an actual murder, and at first she declines the proposal firmly. However, now she's on her way to meet him again; and his address is the Old Rectory, Long Canings.

The story she devises is certainly elaborate: a plan that ritualistically involves the four elements -- but alas, the plot is thicker than Miss Pringle realises. So it's lucky for her that Sir John Appleby, some time Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police but now in uneasy retirement, happens to be visiting the neighbourhood.

It's all most delicious, and builds up to a splendid denouement in which the principal performer is a highly obstreperous goat. Here is Michael Innes at his most unbuttoned; the result is a joy.

Michael Innes: Appleby's Answer. A new novel in which the author combines some intricately plotted detection with gay & even hilarious jeu d'esprit. Gollancz, ISBN: 0575013966 (January, 1973), 192 p., £1.60.