Wednesday, August 03, 2022

Winter murder (Innes: There Came Both Mist and Snow)


Michael Innes. There Came Both Mist and Snow (1940) Well-done closed-cast mystery. It’s Christmas, and Appleby is among the guests snowed in at a country house. The murder is done for money, but the method and the misdirections make for a pretty puzzle, neatly solved by means of literary allusions. There’s enough social comedy and melodrama to distract from the fantastic plot. The narrator is Arthur Ferryman, a waspish writer who never misses an opportunity to make a snide remark about social pretensions, moral failures or personal weaknesses. Nevertheless, a pleasant entertainment, better than average for the genre. **½

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Dave Cooks the turkey and other mishaps (Home From the Vinyl Café, 1998)

Stuart McLean. Home from the Vinyl Café . (1998) The second collection. It begins with Dave Cooks The Turkey , which has become a fixture on...