A collection of short stories featuring Sir John Appleby. The usual pleasant mixture of detection, games, and puns. ( )

Michael Innes and his creation, Inspector Appleby, are always pleasant companions. I have commented in regard to the Appleby novels I have read that Innes sometimes appears to be writing just to amuse himself. Even so, the plots are full of complexity and, while you are unlikely to figure them out, there is a pleasure in being immersed in them. In this collection of short stories, however, the plots are so thin and Appleby's solutions so quick that it is more like reading one of those old Minute Mysteries. If you are an Innes fan, you will probably read quickly through this as I did--but you won't come away with much substance. Most of the stories are not just short, they are short-short. The ones that have some length just ramble on a bit longer, but don't introduce much more in the way of important detail. In these stories, Appleby is in Sherlock Holmes mode. His senses and detection skills exceed everyone else's, and he produces a solution just about the time the reader is getting settled in to the story. But I'm sure Innes was at least amusing himself. ( )

A collection of short stories featuring Innes' excellent Inspector Appleby. If you fancy this style of donnish detective fiction, as I do, I bet you'll like these very well indeed. They're very short, so this makes for a nice book to dip in and out of as you like. ( )