Reading the Detectives discussion

This thread is for our buddy read of Hamlet, Revenge! by Michael Innes, the second in the Inspector Appleby series. Please don't post spoilers in this general thread - there is also a spoiler thread.

I just finished this today. I enjoyed it more than the first book, and was pleased to see Giles Gott turning up again as he makes a good combination with Appleby.

I also enjoyed the Shakespearean theme, but I did find it quite hard going at times and had the same problem as with Death at the President's Lodging of there being too many characters for me to keep track of!

I found the characters easier to keep track of this time. At least some of them were female!

That's true, Pamela - and also not everyone was an academic this time!

Pamela wrote: "I found the characters easier to keep track of this time. At least some of them were female!"

ohh, wait until you meet JUDITH!!! the love of Appleby's life, and the novels concerning her are really, really ...strange.... in some of them he went all "exestential" and deeep, actually in several of his early 1940s books.,

I *love* HAMLET, REVENGE!, it's one of those farcical over-the-top confections so beloved by intellectuals who enjoyed mysteries but had gotten tired of the intricate puzzle plots being the *only* interesting thing in a story by then (late 1930s). Innes made sure to give 'em lots to think about and work through.

and many of Nicholas Blake's are like that as well. Although his plots tend to be a bit more straight-forward.

I liked this, but it was a bit of a slog. I think the plots are quite complicated. Perhaps he is an author better to read in book version, rather than kindle, as I did.

I am reading it (about half way through ) . I had trouble sorting out the characters at first , also the conversations jumped about but then the characters get whittled down. However, it is a quarter of the way through that anything actually happens, and I do feel the quoting of Shakespeare is a terrific cheat to pad the book out, making it longer than required..
At the moment, I am preferring the first book. We shall see if I change my mind in the second half.

I think, overall, I preferred this to the first book, but I am not sure I will read on.

I think I might be tempted to jump ahead a bit - I loved The Journeying Boy, a later book I was given as a present which is really a standalone though Appleby does briefly appear, so maybe later Innes is more to my taste.

I finished the Michael Innes omnibus - the third one was The Daffodil Affair which was completely bonkers! I think overall I liked Hamlet Revenge! best of the three.

I'm not very far in but I'm loving the writing style. (Perhaps its only the novelty and it will wear on me later.) I don't remember this style from the first book.

The second round of characters just got introduced and I'm hoping they can be ignored! Love the references to twins one and two.

Pamela wrote: "I finished the Michael Innes omnibus - the third one was The Daffodil Affair which was completely bonkers! I think overall I liked Hamlet Revenge! best of the three."

Anything to do with Wordsworth?! I've just been to the Lakes and did go to the daffodil garden next to the church in Grasmere, though it was the wrong time of year for them of course!

Judy wrote: "Pamela wrote: "I finished the Michael Innes omnibus - the third one was The Daffodil Affair which was completely bonkers! I think overall I liked Hamlet Revenge! best of the three."

Anything to do..."

There is a vague Bronte connection, but none to Wordsworth. Daffodil is an apparently daft cab horse that is stolen.

A decidedly bonkers book, but one of my favourites.

As Rosina says, but the poem does get quoted, along with other literary allusions that Innes throws in to keep our brains busy!

Thanks, Rosina and Pamela - I suspected Innes wouldn't be able to resist a host of literary references!

This book is certainly hard work. I do like Innes, but he needs concentration, that's for sure...

I assumed Innes was spoofing the Gervase Fen series by Edmund Crispin by having a character named Gervase Crispin, but Innes was published first. Maybe Gervase was a more popular name than I realized.

However the reference to hiring a conceited foreign detective as got to be a dig at Poirot.

Sandy wrote: "I assumed Innes was spoofing the Gervase Fen series by Edmund Crispin by having a character named Gervase Crispin, but Innes was published first. Maybe Gervase was a more popular name than I realiz..."

other 'way around - INNES was the famous one! Crispin's actual name was Robert Bruce Montgomery, and when HAMLET, REVENGE! came out (1937) was likely either just "up" to Oxford or Cambridge - he was 17 - where Innes had studied, and where his mysteries were tremendously popular, along with Nicholas Blake. (also an academic as Innes was). They were the most famous of the "Dons as mystery writers" school, Crispin came into popularity writing the same sorts of style ten years later.

It's quite likely that Montgomery chose "Crispin" for his nom de plume and chose "Gervase" for his detective's name in homage to Innes's character in HAMLET, REVENGE! But being younger, prob. thought he'd tweak The Old Guard with making his stories truly farcical. In mid-1940s Innes was in his 40s - Crispin's first Gervase novel was pub'd 1944, he was 23! And both Innes and Blake were then at the very TOP of the bestseller lists.

You have to admit, the Gervase Fen stories *are* rather anarchic and "undergraduate" in their sense of humor a lot of times, not so surprising when you remember how young he was - and I suppose when the stories caught on (immediately very popular) he needed to continue in a similar vein.

Full Disclosure: I am NOT much of a fan of his supposed "best" novel MOVING TOYSHOP, it has always seemed "too cute for words!" and a really overdone thing, more early-Monty-Python than academic mystery. Yes, I loved the Pythons, and Crispin *does* show some wit and wits mixed in with the foolishness, but several of his books are much better as mysteries, and Fen grows as a character later on too. That appeals more to me than the nose-thumbing spoof of TOYSHOP.

Re the names, in turn I'd been guessing that author Gervase Phinn, former schools inspector and author of a series of humorous memoirs, had to be a big Edmund Crispin fan who had chosen a pseudonym in tribute to his books!

However, I haven't found any evidence that it actually is a psedonym - does anybody know? Maybe just a coincidence or maybe his parents were fans. I haven't read any of Phinn's books so far.

So often books turn out to have connections between them... I'm just reading a mystery by George Bellairs, The Case of the Demented Spiv, and have been surprised to see that it also features an amateur production of Hamlet. However, this is a modern-dress production which sounds very different from the one in Hamlet, Revenge!

What a fantastic title, Judy! I can almost see Hamlet, with a cigarette in the corner of his mouth ;)

Haha Susan, that's a great thought!

The first two Michael Innes kindle books have been reduced to £2.99 this morning. Not a huge reduction, but half price if anyone interested.

I’m finally nearing the climax of the book and am so upset that I don’t know who the murderer is! Just too many people to track. I had hopes for Tommy What’s-His-Name the publisher for a bit (on account of the gratuitous malice in telling the tale of Auldearn and Malloch), but he seems to be right out of consideration.

I got very confused so, don't worry Abigail, you are not alone!