Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging / Seven Suspects

Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging (USA 2024)

From the Publisher:
A Scotland Yard inspector holds the key when a college professor is shot behind a series of locked gates in this classic British mystery series opener.
The usually quiet campus of St. Anthony's College is abuzz with talk of murder. Someone shot Prof. Josiah Umpleby, the college's president, in his room during the night. Word spreads all the way to London, and Insp. John Appleby of New Scotland Yard is dispatched to consult on the case.

The local authorities are already occupied with a string of burglaries and could use the help with this unusual death. Appleby learns that at night, the campus gates are locked, and a section of the college is shut off from the rest. In other words, someone would need a key to reach the president, and that limits Appleby's suspects down to seven.

Now Appleby must keep his wits about him as he combs the grounds for clues. The killer is still on the loose, and they need to be taught a lesson...

Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging. An Inspector Appleby Mystery. Open Road Integrated Media, ISBN: 9781504092036 (February, 2024), 304 p., $24.99.

Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging (USA 2023)

Now Appleby must keep his wits about him as he combs the grounds for clues. The killer is still on the loose, and they need to be taught a lesson...

Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging. An Inspector Appleby Mystery. Open Road Integrated Media, ISBN: 9781504087919 (May, 2023), eBook, 2 MB (ca. 304 p.), $14.99.

Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging (USA 2001)

From the Publisher:
Inspector Appleby is called to St Anthony's College, where the President has been murdered in his Lodging. Scandal abounds when it becomes clear that the only people with any motive to murder him are the only people who had the opportunity - because the President's Lodging opens off Orchard Ground, which is locked at night, and only the Fellows of the College have keys...

Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging. An Inspector Appleby Mystery. House of Stratus, ISBN: 1842327321 (January, 2001), 254 p., $11.50.

Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging (UK 1992)

From the Publisher:
'Just beside the President's grotesquely muffled head lay a human skull. And over the surrounding area of the floor were scattered little piles of human bones.'

Inspector John Appleby has a difficult and delicate task when he investigates the murder of the unpopular Josiah Umpleby of St Anthony's College. The crime is at once intriguing and bizarre, efficient and theatrical - and, intellectually, it is the most challenging crime of his career. For Appleby must pick his way through the malicious gossip and learned squabbles of the college's brightest academics and sift through an embarrassment of clues - genuine and planted.

But with the unexpected aid of three precocious undergraduates - and the St Anthony's burglar - a subtle killer is unmasked and the devious dons find that the oddest thing about the case is Appleby himself...

Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging. Penguin, ISBN: 0140105557 (April, 1992), 275 p., £3.99.

Michael Innes: Seven Suspects (1984)

From the Publisher:
AT ST. ANTHONY'S COLLEGE, INSPECTOR JOHN APPLEBY MUST CONTEND WITH ACADEMIC INTRIGUES, SCHOLARLY SCANDALS, AND ONE VERY CLEVER KILLER.
Murder in the sanctity of an English university was bad enough; but such a vulgar, ungentlemanly murder -- bones scattered about the room, a grotesque drawing of grinning death's-heads scrawled on the wall, and poor President Umpleby's head wrapped in an academic robe -- was a serious blot on the college's reputation.

In this complex and brilliantly resolved mystery Inspector John Appleby matches wits with some of the smartest -- and most devious -- suspects he has ever encountered.

"Closely knit, erudite, engagingly written...[an] always interesting tale of great intellects gone murderously askew" Saturday Review
"Michael Innes is a master." -- The Times Literary Supplement

Originally published in the United Kingdom as Death at the President's Lodging

Michael Innes: Seven Suspects. A Sir John Appleby Mystery. Penguin, ISBN: 0140068864 (July, 1984), 275 p., £1.95, $3.50.

Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging (UK 1976)

From the Publisher:
An academic life, Dr Johnson observed, puts one little in the way of extraordinary casualties. This was not the experience of the Fellows and scholars of St Anthony's College when they awoke one raw November morning to find their President, Josiah Umpleby, murdered in the night. The crime was at once intriguing and bizarre, efficient and theatrical. It was efficient because nobody knew who had committed it. And it was theatrical because of a macabre and unnecessary act of fantasy with which the criminal, it was quickly rumoured, had accompanied the deed...

'Michael Innes is 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' - The Times Literary Supplement

Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging. Penguin, ISBN: 0140012869 (February, 1976), 223 p., 60p.

Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging (UK 1966)

From the Publisher:
The scene of the crime- St Anthony's College. The victim - The President of the college. The suspects - The Fellows of the college, each of whom tries to throw suspicions on his colleagues, until Appleby is faced with a surfeit of evidence.

Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966, 223 p., 3'6.

Michael Innes: Seven Suspects (USA 1965)

From the Publisher:
Seven suspects -- the trouble wasn't so much the quantity as the quality. All seven were distinguished Fellows of St. Anthony's College, and Appleby didn't relish choosing from among them the one who had bizarrely murdered the College president, Josiah Umpleby.

A ticklish job for Appleby, complicated by the fact that for the period in question, the murder area was sealed off like the proverbial Locked Room.

"Mr. Innes works up a full-bodied and exciting story in no time at all and finishes in a burst of suspense and surprise." -- Will Cuppy

Michael Innes: Seven Suspects. An Insepctor Appleby Mystery. New York: Berkley Publishing Corporation, 1965, Berkley Medallion Book No. F-1158, 275 p., 50¢.

Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging (UK 1964)

From the Publisher:
John Appleby was asked to go dowr; to the ancient university to St Anthony's College where the President had been murdered in his Lodging. The case had an aura of scandal, for the only people with any motive to murder him were the Fellows of the college and they too were the only people who could have had the opportunity -- because the President's Lodging opened off Orchard Ground which was locked at night, and only the Fellows had keys! The complications were the greater because the body had been found in confused circum-stances, with the gown of a visiting professor round its head and a pile of bones of Australian aborigines beside it! Appleby was greeted with a great deal of co-operation from the Fellows, each of whom tried to throw suspicion on his colleagues so that in the end there was too much evidence.

'It must be sufficient to indicate that Death at the President's Lodging is the most important contribution to detective literature that has appeared for some time' -- The Times Literary Supplement

Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964, 222 p., 3'-.

Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging (UK 1958)

From the Publisher:
John Appleby was asked to go down to the ancient university to St Anthony's College where the President had been murdered in his Lodging. The case had an aura of scandal, for the only people with any motive to murder him were the Fellows of the college and they too were the only people who could have had the opportunity - because the President's Lodging opened off Orchard Ground which was locked at night, and only the Fellows had keys! The complications were the greater because the body had been found in confused circumstances, with the gown of a visiting professor round its head and a pile of bones of Australian aborigines beside it! Appleby was greeted with a great deal of cooperation from the Fellows, each of whom tried to throw suspicion on his colleagues so that in the end there was too much evidence.

'It must be sufficient to indicate that Death at the President's Lodging is the most important contribution to detective literature that has appeared for some time.' - The Times Literary Supplement

Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1958, Penguin Books No. 1286, 222 p., 2'6.

Michael Innes: Seven Suspects (USA 1937)

From the Publisher:
If Dr. Umpleby had shot himself, decent manners would have demanded reticence and the suppression of any undue curiosity about the matter, but murder, mysterious murder at that, was felt almost at once to license open excitement and speculation. The Dean, in particular, was perturbed. Murder in the sanctity of an English university was bad enough, but such a vulgar, ungentlemanly murder - bones scattered about the room, that grotesque drawing over the fireplace, and poor old Umpleby's head wrapped in his gown.

Inspector Appleby took on the case with some misgiving. After all it would be well nigh impossible to interest a St. Anthony's professor in anything so mundane as murder. It only added to his confusion when each of the seven Dons who lived near the unfortunate President's lodging offered to explain to him exactly why one of their number must be the guilty one. How he threaded his way through this maze of false clues and subterfuge to the eventual solution is a brilliant story, smoothly written with an ingenious twist at the finish.

SEVEN SUSPECTS, just published in England, has suddenly leapt into prominence and is being hailed as the best "first" mystery since TRENT'S LAST CASE.

Michael Innes: Seven Suspects. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1937, 275 p., $2.00.