There Came Both Mist and Snow (1940) by Michael Innes

Last year, I posted "The Naughty List: Top 12 Favorite Christmas Mystery Novels & Short Stories" ranging from a few celebrated classics (Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot's Christmas, 1938) and a couple of recent reprints (Rupert Latimer's Murder After Christmas, 1944) to more modern titles (James Yaffe's Mom Meets Her Maker, 1990) and even a fresh one (A. Carver's The Christmas Miracle Crimes, 2023) – sprinkled with a few short stories (Herbert Resnicow's "The Christmas Bear," 1990). Nick Fuller, of the Grandest Game in the World, turned up in the comments to suggest a few alternatives like G.K. Chesterton's "The Flying Stars" (1911), Gladys Mitchell's Dead Men's Morris (1936) and Michael Innes' There Came Both Mist and Snow (1940). I had read the Chesterton story and Mitchell novel, but not the Innes novel. So tossed it on the December pile for this year.

There Came Both Mist and Snow, published in the US as A Comedy of Terrors, is the fifth novel in the Inspector John Appleby series and the first to establish a formula. The late Wyatt James wrote on the GADWiki that There Came Both Mist and Snow was the first Innes "cloned over and over again" with "odd folks in a decayed, or not so decaying but threatened, fancy house" tucked away somewhere in rural England. A formula that nonetheless lends itself perfectly for a family Christimas mystery, which just so happened to be mentioned in Robert Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991). Not that it influenced my choice, of course. It's not even an impossible crime at all. So, really, this one is for you, Nick!

Arthur Ferryman, "fashionable contemporary novelist," is on his way to Belrive Priory to spend Christmas with his cousin Sir Basil Roper and their extended family, mostly "cousinly relationships," while doing narration duty. So the first half dozen chapters has Ferryman describing the surroundings, introducing the family and indulges, in what can be deemed, literary flourishes – peppered with archaic words and pretentious phrases ("...desuetude of agriculture"). Not exactly a good beginning to convince those who find Innes too dense and at times pedantic to be truly enjoyable. A style, I think, worked best in his early, magniloquent detective fantasies like Hamlet, Revenge! (1937) and Lament for a Maker (1938), but its effectiveness varies in a conventional country house mystery. So the chapters leading up to the crime can be a slog to get through, but even then the preamble was not without its moments. In the first chapter, Ferryman gives a description of the historical surroundings, "park, mansion and ruins," where the modern world is already taking root. Notably the giant, flickering mechanical neon sign of Horace Cudbird's brewery, "Cudbird's Beers are Best," which has become something of a local attraction and landmark. Casting a futuristic play of light, color and moving shadows on its surroundings that people watch from their terrace.

One other scene worth mentioning is the ill-fated attempt at an impromptu parlor game, Shakespeare's bells, which revolves around quotations from Shakespeare involving bells ("who can keep Shakespeare's bells ringing longest?"). Since most of Shakespeare's bells toll for the departed, this "literary competition" lost its lighthearted touch to a funereal atmosphere. It probably also didn't help that revolver shooting was picked as another game to living up the Christmas party. So, yes, the first-half moves very slowly and feels directionless, until one of the cousins is shot and wounded. Wilfred Foxcroft, a banker, is shot while writing a letter in his uncle's study shortly before the arrival of Sir Basil's mystery guest, Inspector John Appleby, who immediately takes charge of the case.

The attempted murder gives the story and plot some much needed focus and direction, because the shooting poses a number of tricky questions besides the routine ones. Who was the intended target, Wilfred or Sir Basil? Could the shooter have mistaken Wilfred for his uncle when he was sitting at his desk? Both were dressed in "the sort of uniform that a dinner-jacket constitutes." Why was Wilfred so imperfectly shot and what happened to the gun? Like I said, the problem of the gun is not an impossible crime as reported, it could have been tweaked into an impossible crime, but it would have neither been good nor particular satisfying – underwhelming at best. Innes smartly invested in another aspect of the plot that allowed the story to largely pull itself together in the second-half.

Ferryman gets roped in by Appleby to help, "as a sort of Watson," who gets to hear "seven principal theories sponsored by seven different people" in the tradition of Anthony Berkeley and Christianna Brand. Not all of the false-solutions are worthy of the comparison as they merely more than accusations or simplicity itself, but the last four, or so, are an exercise in the art of plotting and writing in giving original explanations for the all-important, imperfect shot. Even more impressively, Innes clued or foreshadowed every one of these false-solutions. I gladly would have accepted either Cudbird or Appleby's false-solution as correct solution to the case. Unfortunately, the correct solution is disappointing lacking the imaginative originality of the false-solutions preceding it. Not the first time one, or more, false-solutions undermine the ending of a detective story, but here it was more damaging as it needed a punchy conclusion after a rough, directionless first-half and the promise of its second-half pulling itself together.

There Came Both Mist and Snow is not without its moments, qualities or flashes of ingenuity, but, on a whole, too uneven to be truly good or recommend. The problem is in the first-half and the ending. The crawl that is the first-half is a test patience, which is deadly for a lighthearted country house mystery, but following up that parade of imaginative false-solutions with an explanation lacking all of their qualities is bound to disappoint – especially one (ROT13) erqhpvat gur fubbgvat vg gb n qhzo nppvqrag. Innes should have gone with Appleby's false-solution and called it a day. I suggest trying What Happened at Hazelwood (1946) instead.

I don't want to give up on Innes and Stop Press (1939) sounds like a trip, but Nick Fuller added a warning to his review that somehow feels directed at me. Stop Press is according to Nick an acquired taste and some readers might hate it, "particulary those who read little but detective fiction, and who read only for plot." That's not entirely true, but wholly incorrect either. So maybe A Private View (1952) or The Bloody Wood (1966) next?