Michael Innes: The Open House (USA 2000)

From the Publisher:
When Inspector Appleby's car breaks down on a deserted road one dark night, he happens upon an imposing mansion, whose windows are all illuminated. His sense of curiosity gets the better of him when he discovers that the front door is wide open, and he gets a funny feeling of being watched as he wanders round this splendid house, looking for signs of life. When he finds an elaborate feast laid out, he wonders who is expected...

Michael Innes: The Open House. An Inspector Appleby Mystery. House of Stratus, ISBN: 184232750X (January, 2000), 180 p., $11.50.

Michael Innes: The Open House (UK 1982)

From the Publisher:
THE FRONT DOOR WAS STANDING INVITINGLY OPEN...
When his car breaks down on a deserted road, Sir John Appleby wanders up a drive in search of help. Suddenly, a palatial residence appears before him, its every window blazing. In the dining room, candles are lit, champagne is on ice, and dinner is waiting. But not a sound is heard. Anywhere.

Appleby, retired chief of Scotland Yard, is about to embark on one of his strangest adventures ever. In his usual urbane manner Sir John confronts an absent-minded professor, a mysterious lady in white, South American conspirators, several murderers... and their victims.

Michael Innes: The Open House. Penguin, ISBN: 0140036636 (October, 1982), 158 p., £1.25.

Michael Innes: The Open House (USA 1982)

From the Publisher:
THE FRONT DOOR WAS STANDING INVITINGLY OPEN...
When his car breaks down on a deserted road, Sir John Appleby wanders up a drive in search of help. Suddenly, a palatial residence appears before him, its every window blazing. In the dining room, candles are lit, champagne is on ice, and dinner is waiting. But not a sound is heard. Anywhere.

Appleby, retired chief of Scotland Yard, is about to embark on one of his strangest adventures ever. In his usual urbane manner Sir John confronts an absent-minded professor, a mysterious lady in white, South American conspirators, several murderers... and their victims.

Michael Innes: The Open House. Penguin, ISBN: 0140036636 (October, 1982), 158 p., $2.95.

Michael Innes: The Open House (UK 1973)

From the Publisher:
It is a very dark night. Appleby is driving along a lonely country road when his car fails. He wanders up a drive in search of help. Suddenly a magnificent Palladian mansion springs to light before him, every window uncurtained and lit up. The front door is open... Appleby walks into the splendid pillared hall - and in doing so walks into one of his strangest adventures.

Michael Innes: The Open House. Penguin, ISBN: 0140036636 (January, 1973), 158 p., 25p.

Michael Innes: The Open House (USA 1972)

From the Publisher:
Here once again is a startling tour de force from Michael Innes. The action covers only one fantastic night, in which Sir John Appleby, retired chief of Scotland Yard, discovered a complex crime with its roots in the distant past and solved it between darkness and dawn.

When his car broke down at midnight on a lonely country road, he wandered up a drive in search of help. Suddenly a mag-nificent Palladian mansion sprang to light before him, its every window simulta-neously illuminated - like a great fanfare of trumpets. What could this mean? A party? But there was not a sound to be heard. The front door was standing invit-ingly open and Appleby walked into the splendid pillared hall. He called and no one answered. In the dining room a meal was laid for one. A bottle of champagne was icing in a bucket. Somebody was expected!

And so Appleby walked into one of his strangest adventures. In turn he became involved with an eccentric professor, a saturnine butler named Leonidas, an un-expected parson, a mysterious woman in white, art thieves, South American conspirators, first and second murderers, and a mutilated corpse...

Here is Innes at the top of his form, in a mystery that is expertly diverting and decidedly different.

Michael Innes is at his entertaining best in this superbly inventive tale of a disappearing corpse. Bobby, the engaging son of that great master of detection Sir John Appleby, found the body. He was having an early round of golf on his own, when he hit his ball into a bunker and saw a dead man lying there, shot in the head. While he was wondering what to do, a very attractive and level-headed girl arrived on the scene -a gir who immediately impressed the susceptible Bobby. He went back to the clubhouse to telephone for the police, but when he returned with Sergeant Howard, there was no girl and no corpse. All that remained of his story was his ball, still in The bunker.

"Mr. Appleby," Sergeant Howardemarked, "you seem to be in rather an awkward lie." The police were at first inclined to regard Bobby's story as a youthful practical joke. But he had a clue, and in following it up, wandered into a sinister yet hilariously comic mystery.

Michael Innes: The Open House. A Sir John Appleby Mystery Novel. A Red Badge Novel of Suspense. Dodd, Mead & Co., ISBN: 0396065244 (January, 1972), 191 p., $4.95.