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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