Michael Innes: Appleby's End (USA 2001)

From the Publisher:
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?

Michael Innes: Appleby's End. House of Stratus, ISBN: 184232716X (January, 2001), 218 p., $11.50.

Michael Innes: Appleby's End (USA 1975)

From the Publisher:
COWS TURNING INTO MARBLE! A SEVERED HEAD GLISTENING IN THE SNOW! A TOMBSTONE WITH THE NAME-AND DATE OF DEATH-OF A LIVING MAN!
Bizarre visions -- mentioned in the writings of the late Ranulph Raven -- were happening in real life!

Enter Appleby of Scotland Yard, sent to investigate Raven's strange brood of descendants at the family home near Snarl. But the great detective can hardly remain a detached observer when he suddenly discovers that the trains no longer run to Snarl, and that he is forced to get off at a stop called:
APPLEBYS END

Michael Innes' latest "adventure in crime is sure of instant success... fantastic is the word." The New York Times

Michael Innes: Appleby's End. Would the man from Scotland Yard investigate his own murder? Ballantine Mystery No. 24409 (February, 1975), 218 p., $1.25

Michael Innes: Appleby's End (UK 1969)

From the Publisher:
Appleby's End was the name of the station where Detective-Inspector John Appleby got off the train from Scotland Yard.
That could have been a coincidence. But, from then on, coincidences came too often, too fast and too many to be genuine.

Everything that happened related back to stories by Ranulph Raven, Victorian novelist. Animals were replaced by marble effigies. Someone received a tombstone that told him when he would die. A servant was found buried up to his neck in snow - dead. Even Appleby's End, it turned out, was a story by Ranulph Raven. And why did Ranulph Raven's mysterious descendants make a point of inviting Appleby to spend the night at their house?

Maybe Appleby's End was in sight.

Michael Innes: Appleby's End. London: Penguin, 1969, 218 p., 25p 5/-.

Michael Innes: Appleby's End (USA 1965)

From the Publisher:
DETECTIVE-INSPECTOR JOHN APPLEBY WAS FAR FROM THE SCENE OF THE CRIME.
The fantastic crime had been committed in the snow-bound hamlet of Snarl, but Appleby found himself sidetracked for the night in the manor house of Long Dream, miles away. Glumly he settled down with a long-forgotten novel written by his host's celebrated father.

Instead of sending him to sleep, however, the book gave him the shock of his life: a fictional clue to the factual crime he was on his way to investigate!

Rich in the erudite humor and improbable events for which its author is famous, Appleby's End is another Michael Innes classic in the tradition of his Hamlet, Revenge!, also published as a Collier Book. A scholar, lecturer, and critic, JOHN I. M. STEWART is known to mystery readers as Michael Innes. His other Collier Books are Lament for a Maker and The Case of Sonia Wayward.

Michael Innes: Appleby's End. New York: Collier Books, 1965, 191 p., 95c.