Michael Innes: A Night of Errors (USA 2024)

From the Publisher:
An ex-Scotland Yard inspector is pulled out of retirement to investigate a murder and a family's fiery legacy in this classic British mystery. Sir John Appleby has left Scotland Yard behind to retire to the country -- but there's no escaping crime. In the middle of a hot summer night, he is woken up by a phone call. Inspector Hyland of the Sherris Magna police is in dire need of assistance after a local baronet has been murdered...

Of course, it's far more complex than that. Authorities believe Sir Oliver Dromio was hit over the head with a revolver then burned in his study's fireplace. There's also the matter of Oliver's brothers. The late baronet was a triplet who lost his two brothers in a fire forty years ago. Was Oliver's murder an act of retribution?

Appleby makes his way to Sherris Hall where he gets caught up in a family's melodrama in a household teeming with legend and tragedy. Sifting through family secrets in squabbles, Appleby must smoke out a killer before they strike again...

Michael Innes: A Night of Errors. An Inspector Appleby Mystery. Open Road Integrated Media, ISBN: 9781504092296 (May, 2024), 244 p., $20.99, eBook $9.99.

Michael Innes: A Night of Errors (USA 2000)

From the Publisher:
A gruelling night of shrouded motives and confused identities develops when the last of the Dromios is found murdered, with both of his hands burnt off. He was one of triplets, whose brothers had died in a fire forty years previously. Inspector Appleby wrenches the facts from a melodrama in which the final solution is written in fire.

Michael Innes: A Night of Errors. House of Stratus, ISBN: 1842327488 (January, 2000), 234 p., $11.50.

Michael Innes: A Night of Errors (UK 1969)

From the Publisher:
A long, lurid night of covered motives and confused identities.
When the last of the Dromios was found murdered, both his hands had been burnt off. He was one of triplets. Forty years ago both his brothers had also died in a fire.

Tongues of flame repeat their mad message, as Appleby wrenches facts from a night of melodrama, in which the final solution is written in fire.

Michael Innes: A Night of Errors. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969, Penguin Books C2373, 203 p., 25p 5/- .

Michael Innes: A Night of Errors (UK 1966)

From the Publisher:
A long, lurid night of covered motives and confused identities.
When the last of the Dromios was found murdered, both his hands had been burnt off. He was one of triplets. Forty years ago both his brothers had also died in a fire.

Tongues of flame repeat their mad message, as Appleby wrenches facts from a night of melodrama, in which the final solution is written in fire.

Michael Innes: A Night of Errors. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966, Penguin Books C2373, 203 p., 3'6.

Michael Innes: A Night of Errors (USA 1963)

From the Publisher:
Sherris Hall, a somewhat decayed stately home of England, is the fantastic setting for one of Sir John Appleby's wildest cases, with a full cast of characters to match. There is vague, yet oddly expectant Lady Dromio; her unseen, but sinister son, Sir Oliver; cryptic Lucy, her adopted daughter; Swindle, the somnolent butler; and the dead shades of Sir Oliver's triplet brothers, Jaques and Orlando, the shock of whose birth, forty years ago, had totally unhinged their father's tottering mind. Fire, murder, and mad chases succeed one another through an unforgettable night, as Appleby struggles to sort out an ever-more-complicated -- and ominous -- situation.

Michael Innes: A Night of Errors. An Inspector Appleby Mystery. New York: Berkley Publishing Corporation, 1963, A Berkley Medallion Book, 191 p., 50¢.

Michael Innes: A Night of Errors (USA 1947)

From the Publisher:
The Dromios were doomed, no doubt, when the original Sir Ferdinand Dromio sired triplets and established thereby a disconcerting precedent. Generations later it was evident that something must be done about this bad family habit; and, as a dire consequence, two out of three of Sir Romeo Dromio's sons disappeared in a nursery fire. Yet in spite of this -- perhaps because of it -- the hereditary problem would not stay solved.

Forty years later, Detective Appleby and Inspector Hyland were called to do something about the charred body of the latest baronet in one of the Dromio fireplaces, and found in the ancestral halls not only a long-lost mystery, triply complicated, but a weird and wonderful assortment of Dromios, servants and friends. There was Lady Dromio, anticipating the emergence of a skeleton from her closet; her adopted daughter, Lucy, who probably should have written mediocre novels; Swindle, the butler, who was stubbornly resistant to spontaneous combustion; and the Vicar, strangely unaccustomed to odd wine. To quote a Swindle understatement, "None of the Dromios be common folk."

Nor be this a common matter of life and death. Even casual, callous Appleby begins to lose his light touch after a long night, largely erroneous, of sleuthing after an inspired pyromaniac -- and the story ends with a bizarre and typically Innes-like revelation, as unexpected to Appleby as it will be to the reader.

Michael Innes: A Night of Errors. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1947, A Red Badge Mystery, 211 p., $2.50.