Mount TBR #18

I read this book for Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2019.

The Mysterious Commission – Michael Innes

Portrait artist Charles Honeybath starred in four mysteries, of which this novel was the first. The mysterious commission is to paint the portrait of a subject who must remain anonymous and to do after being taken to an undisclosed location about an hour’s drive from London. Honeybath is between jobs in the recession-ridden Seventies so he accepts the commission.

Only to go through a series of adventures which beggar belief. Innes’ goal was to entertain the thinking reader. He deploys learned vocabulary and makes allusions he expects the reader to get. In a quintessential Innes paragraph, our hero has been given refuge after an attempt has been made on his life and he considers while falling asleep:

… They had got him off to bed, and might by now be supposing that he was fast asleep. It was true that he had locked what appeared to be the only entrance to the room. But might it not run to a trap-door, or something of that kind? What about the bed’s being so constructed that, at the touch of a distant lever, it would vanish through the floor? What about a deadly snake crawling down a bell-rope? It was true there didn’t seem to be a bell-rope – but in a large way the possibility held, all the same. For the point was – that they had now got what they wanted from him. Indefinably but beyond cavil – this was just a sudden retrospective revelation – his tea-time colloquy with the Mariners had concluded on a note of something like relaxation and ease. They had, those two, as it were, coaxed the cat out of the bag.

I think Innes’ goal was simply to entertain the reader with fun. Thrill at the narrow escapes and loony chases. Smile at the farce. Be amused at the improbable plot twists.

It seems that Innes is becoming a neglected writer. This is the natural course things as tastes in humor, fantasy, and detective stories change. But readers who like intelligence, dry English wit, and a slightly academic tone will like Michael Innes’ mysteries.

Other Reviews of Michael Innes’ Mysteries

Lament for a Maker (1938)

From London Far a.k.a. The Unsuspected Chasm (1946)

Silence Observed (1961)

Money from Holme (1964)

A Change of Heir (1966)

Death by Water aka Appleby at Allington (1968)

Death at the Chase (1970)

Appleby’s Answer (1973)

Lord Mullion’s Secret (1981)

Sheiks and Adders (1982)