Lord Mullion's Secret (3)

Charles Honeybath #3

by Michael Innes

At Mullion Castle, sumptuous stately home, we meet the Earl and his family, who include his delightful daughters, Patty and Boosie, and dotty Great-aunt Camilla. Old school chum, Charles Honeybath, who has been commissioned to paint a portrait of the Earl's wife, finds himself at the helm of a complex investigation involving ancestral works of art and a young under gardener, Swithin, who seems to possess the family features somewhat strikingly . . .

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Audiobook, Fiction, British Literature

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Michael Innes was the pseudonym of John Innes MacKintosh (J.I.M.) Stewart (J.I.M. Stewart).

He was born in Edinburgh, and educated at Edinburgh Academy and Oriel College, Oxford. He was Lecturer in English at the University of Leeds from 1930 - 1935, and spent the succeeding ten years as Jury Professor of English at the University of Adelaide, South Australia.

He returned to the United Kingdom in 1949, to become a Lecturer at the Queen's University of Belfast. In 1949 he became a Student (Fellow) of Christ Church, Oxford, becoming a Professor by the time of his retirement in 1973.

As J.I.M. Stewart he published a number of works of non-fiction, mainly critical studies of authors, including Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling, as well as about twenty works of fiction and a memoir, 'Myself and Michael Innes'.

As Michael Innes, he published numerous mystery novels and short story collections, most featuring the Scotland Yard detective John Appleby.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Portraitist Charles Honeybath is invited by Lord Mullion, an old school friend, to paint Lady Mullion. The castle is inviting, and most of the family is pleasant. True, elderly Great Aunt Camilla is a little odd--make that quite odd--but her conversation is tantalizing. Charles is also haunted by something familiar looking about the gardener's boy, who seems to be in love with the Mullions' oldest daughter Patty. There's a valuable missing miniature in the mixture as well, and a vicar with some connection to the family, especially Camilla. Fortunately, there's also an old family doctor who has his own secrets. Not really a crime novel, but with Innes' typical dry wit, and probably of much interest to those with knowledge of architecture.

[John Frankham · Rating 4 out of 5]

A re-read. As good as ever.

A late, 1981, Michael Innes, so, lacking the length, and the breadth and complexity of story and plot of the earlier ones.

But this still has the trademark intellect and wit, and deviousness of plot we are used to.

No Inspector Appleby, but the portraitist Charles Honeybath as the protagonist. Invited by the Earl of Mullion to stay at his castle and paint the Countess, Honeybath's eye for faces and pictures provokes the inhabitants to reveal, while trying to conceal, family secrets going back generations.

Good, erudite, fun.

[Shelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Majority of stars are for Hugh Laurie's impeccable narration, though story was good, too.

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this mystery with no murder in it!

[Mimi · Rating 2 out of 5]

The person who loaned this to me indicated it was full of witty remarks and I'd laugh and laugh. I must have been not in the right mood for this book (which happens - perhaps the characters were at the annual Bookie Awards) and I found it slighly amusing but not more.

[Bev · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charles Honeybath, portrait artist and sometime amateur sleuth, agrees to paint the portrait of Lady Mullion, wife of his old school friend. When he arrives at Mullion Castle he finds himself caught up in the lives of his friend's rather eccentric family. There is dotty Great-aunt Camilla with her mysterious midnight wanderings and hints of a secret in her past. There's Lady Patricia and her love of gardening...and possibly the gardener's boy who has such a way with flowers. There's the younger Lord Mullion--Cyprian and his careless ways and Lady Lucy ("Boosie"--seriously?) with her egalitarian notions.

And then, of course, there's the odd happenings. Great-aunt Camilla had quite a passion for painting herself at one time and some of her work is displayed here and there around the castle. But after Honeybath gets a peek at two of them, they suddenly disappear and are replaced by completely different paintings. And when Honeybath is shown a trio of valuable miniature portraits of three of the Mullion ancestors, he notices that one of those has been replaced with a modern reproduction. What exactly is going on at the Mullion estate?

Well, of course, Lord Mullion has a secret. Only it may not be the Lord Mullion you think. Nor may it be the secret that you think it is. And, who knows, it may not even be Lord Mullion's secret that we need to find out about. Honestly, it's hard to consider this much of a mystery at all. Sure, there's the theft of the miniature and the family secrets to unravel, but all-in-all there isn't much in the way of crime. The theft is explained (and rectified). Honeybath has a good time ferreting out secrets, but in the end, it's the vicar and the doctor who reveal all. If Michael Innes's writing weren't so good, I doubt I'd give this the ★★★ that I'm assigning to it. The family interactions are fun and watching Honeybath follow the trail of secrets is interesting. But as a mystery it does lack a certain something.

First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting portions of review. Thanks.

[Keith Currie · Rating 4 out of 5]

No murders, but one death; no criminal activity, but one temporary theft; this is not a crime novel in any normal sense of the word. Rather, it is an exploration of the convoluted family tree of the Mullions and a solution to a problem of heredity. Along the way there are all the usual idiosyncratic trademarks of Michael Innes' eccentric dramatis personae and pleasure in the use of the English language.

[Sharon]

It had that lovely, fusty Michael Innes grammar and vocabulary (I had to look up five words). And I enjoyed the usual feeling his books give me of walking into a community I know little about.

But the clues in this mystery were not really clues — just characters suspecting things. And

***spoiler***

Cousins marrying each other is not a happy ending.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't one of Michael Innes' crazy books, (or as one blogger calls them, phantasms), and less discursive than some. It's a pretty straightforward, lightweight mystery with no murder...a quick, amusing study of family and class issues. The characters keep saying things that are inappropriate to their class and being surprised about it. Plenty of the author's trademark humor, I'm happy to say: "Mullion's intellectual faculties seemed to be increasingly in abeyance."

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if I were the only person on earth who still likes this sort of book. Very tame and calm, yet with an unguessed ending. Worries about class. Mildly humorous dialogue among people without serious worries. I am very heartened by the long list of "Other Books by This Author," the suspicion that many of them are in the library, and the certainty that no-one else is checking them out.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was just OK for me, but I would feel bad giving it only 2 stars out of 5. Weirdly, this book could have had a surprise ending, but just over half-way through, before the reader necessarily suspects anything, a family secret is divulged in the narration. Then the reader just waits for all the characters to be apprised in their own time. So it was anticlimactic, but a cute read.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable, very well written, and really quite amusing.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A review I read described this as more of a reflection on the foibles of the society portrayed rather than an actual mystery, and that is accurate, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...

[Delia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not exactly a mystery per se, but throughly enjoyable the society portrayal. I didn't laugh out loud but it has some very witty remarks.