Death At The Chase
3.5/5
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Currently unavailable
About this ebook
When master sleuth, Appleby, leaps over a stile during a country stroll, he is apprehended by an irate Martyn Ashmore, owner of the land on which Appleby has unwittingly trespassed. But when the misunderstanding is cleared up, eccentric, aged Ashmore reveals that he is in fear for his life - once every year, someone attempts to murder him. Is it the French Resistance, or a younger Ashmore on the make? When Martyn dies, Appleby sets out to find who exactly is responsible.
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Reviews for Death At The Chase
124 ratings13 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is the first of the marvelous John Appleby series by Michael Innes. The Appleby books are soothingly literary and often comic. This particular mystery sets the tone for Innes' educated and pragmatic detective. Unfortunately, the solution to the mystery is beyond contrived and convoluted. I am a huge fan of Innes' work but by the end I didn't care "whodunit."
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is the first in Innes’ Inspector Appleby series and was published in 1936. I expected perhaps something akin to Agatha Christie but Innes is very different. Or perhaps I only think so because this particular mystery was set in an Oxford/Cambridge-based university and I have no understanding whatever of dons/underdons/proctors and so on and found it difficult to wade through all of those issues (which are pertinent to the crime). The mystery was solid but although I may read more Innes, given the number of untried mystery series out there, I doubt that it will be soon.Read this if: you like a really ‘academic’ mystery, British, straight-up; or, like I did, you need an “I” author for an A-Z Reading Challenge. 3 stars
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5An enjoyable mystery with a great main character. I thought the mystery a bit too complicated to believe, and otherwise would have scored this higher. But I'll continue the series and watch Inspector Appleby grow!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very much a classic, not least in its status as Stewart's first book as "Michael Innes". The characterisation of the college fellows is both entertaining and believable, and the trouble Innes has gone to to create a plausible third Ancient University in the neighbourhood of Bletchley (the railway junction where passengers from Oxford to Cambridge used to have to change trains) is very impressive. All it takes are a few names of streets, pubs and colleges thrown in as though we know exactly where they are. There are quite a few little throwaway literary references, though nothing too obscure: one clue or bit of misdirection hinges on the only bit of Kant most of us are likely to be aware of. At one point Appleby finds himself co-operating with a don who writes crime novels in his spare time. Some literature graduates may raise a weary smile of recognition on spotting a character called Empson in a story in which both ambiguity and the number seven play a significant role, although Innes takes care to make E. an elderly scholar in the field of psychology (the real William Empson was thirty and teaching in Asia in 1936).There aren't any characters apart from the dons, Appleby, a couple of local policemen, and three rather generic silly undergraduates. No women with speaking parts at all, and no love-interest of any kind, just a ridiculous number of conflicting alibis, red herrings, and a crazy obsession with precise timings. A lot of method and opportunity, but not much real examination of motive. The premise seems to be that the Head of a college is ipso facto fair game, no additional motive being required. It's a straightforward single murder, but the solution is almost absurdly complicated. Entertaining, but a bit trying.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This is an old fashioned English detective story, but more so.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In this, his first mystery, Innes had not quite realized his individual voice. There are odd echoes of Ngaio Marsh's Alleyne and Fox in the interaction between Appleby and the local inspector. Innes' undergraduate characters are generally caricatures; in this novel they are obtrusively and painfully so. By contrast, the dons are described with a certain amount of psychological insight and are a quite enjoyable bunch. The actual resolution of the crime is uninteresting; but since it occurs just a few pages short of the end and the story is so enjoyable this is not a serious flaw.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was not only the first in the Appleby series which was to continue very successfully, with 35 titles, till 1986, but it was also Michael Innes' (John Innes Mackintosh Stewart) debut novel.The murder has a very limited number of suspects (the alternative title for the book was SEVEN SUSPECTS) and they try to move suspicion from themselves to each other, to the point of even moving the body, destroying evidence, and leaving "red herring" clues with the body. There is an elaborate setup with keys to the college grounds of the college, being changed on the day before the murder, and with the description of the college as being like a "submarine": once locked up no-one can get in, and keys are needed to get out.As the publisher's blurb says, this was "donnish" detective fiction, with an academic feel to it. The text is littered with references to current detective fiction that Innes either did or didn't like, and rather obviously tries to appeal to an "intellectual" audience. Just by-the-by Innes seems also to be trying to establish that writing detective fiction, as he is, or reading it, as his readers are, is a "worthwhile" intellectual activity.There are times when you just wish the action would happen faster, that Innes/Appleby would just "get on with it". A lot of time is spent with suspects explaining where they were at the time the murder must have happened, and why they thought someone else had perpetrated the crime. Innes is obviously trying to engage his readers with logic puzzles which involve timing and placement. I couldn't help wondering if the original publication included a map.I suspect the language hasn't really weathered time very well and will have limited appeal to modern readers.However the narrator Stephen Hogan provides a good audio version.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Enjoyable piece of classic British crime, intelligently written and set in an Oxford-like college. Gets a little ridiculous in denouement but still an enjoyable read.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This was an okay read for me. The plot was well written and the premise was one that I enjoyed. There is nothing like a good old fashioned mystery and that was exactly what this book was.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Very British. A intellectual inspector from Scotland Yard is called on to solve a murder at his alma mater, a college patterned on Oxford or Cambridge. The case is complicated because of the cerebral bent of the suspects. If you like Inspector Morse, you'll like Inspector Appleby, who pre-dates him.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Probably read this when I was in grad school, but I no longer remembered it. Just read it again. It was fun and Innes is a very good writer but this was not nearly as good as the later books in the series. This one was drenched in academicism and the mystery plot was pretty close to ridiculous.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A complicated (one might say a bit too convoluted) academic murder mystery, the first appearance of Inspector Appleby. I'll be interested to see how the character develops; I enjoyed the humor and wit of this one, and will certainly read more from the series.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Tedious. Characterization very thin.