Appleby and the Ospreys (1986) by Michael Innes

I recently returned to the detective novels of "Michael Innes," a nom-de-plume of Oxford don J.I.M. Stewart, by plucking Appleby's Other Story (1974) from my bookshelves and mentioned in my review that he penned the last published mystery novel by a big name from the genre's Golden Age – namely Appleby and the Ospreys (1986). A swansong that came fifty years after Death at the President's Lodging (1936) and has two years on Gladys Mitchell's posthumously published The Crozier Pharaohs (1984).

So this fairly minor work not only retired a well-known detective-character, Sir John Appleby of Scotland Yard, but it closed the book on an entire era of the genre!

Appleby and the Ospreys was published in the year Innes turned eighty and laid down his pen for good, passing away eight years later in 1994, but he had lived a long life that covered one of the most turbulent centuries in human history and you can find some reflections in this book – like an attempt to link the past with the present. There are references to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Purloined Letter," C. Auguste Dupin and Mycroft Holmes, but the "properly developed" constabulary is armed with "wireless telephones, electric typewriters, cameras" and "the computers that have become so indispensable."

Despite these present-day intrusions, Appleby and the Ospreys has a plot deeply rooted in the genre's past and reads like a grandfatherly reminiscence ("I was a much better policeman... than I am the country gentleman"). But with more lucidity than Agatha Christie's doddering Postern of Fate (1973).

The book opens with the retired Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir John Appleby, lunching with his wife at the ancestral seat of the Ospreys, Clusters, where they attempt to consult him on a local problem pertaining a colony of bats – who made the church their roost and frighten the village children in the choir. Bats in the belfry!

Ten days later, Detective-Inspector Ringwood telephones Appleby on behalf of Lady Osprey to inform him that her husband, Lord Osprey, had been "stabbed in the throat" in the library of Clusters ("the venue must be said to be a little lacking in originality"). Lady Ospreys wants Appleby to consult with Ringwood on the matter and the retired Commissioner reluctantly agrees.

The key to the case lies in a set of very specific questions. What happened to the murder weapon? Where did Lord Osprey his elusive Osprey Collection of coins? Who was the lurking person spotted outside the manor house on the day preceding the murder? A murder mystery with all the trappings of a traditional country house mystery from a bygone era, but, as said before, there are occasional reminders that the book was written in the 1980s. One of these reminders is a rape accusation leveled against the victim's son, Adrian Osprey, who got mixed up with an "obstinately uncompliant" village girl and this is a rare crime to find in a traditionally-styled mystery novel of the old school. The only other examples I can think of are Robert van Gulik's The Chinese Bell Murders (1958), Soji Shimada's Senseijutsu satsunjinjinken (The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, 1981) and John Bakkenhoven's Moord op de Keizersgracht (Murder on the Emperor's Channel, 2003).

However, my impression is that Innes was rather lost with these modern components and they either remained unused or were brushed aside. I fear many readers today will take exception to the way this plot-thread was disposed of without a second look.

Anyway, the plot logically sticks together and can be considered fairly clued, but the problem is that the whole scheme has the transparency of a plate of glass and everyone should be able to arrive at the same conclusions as Appleby and Ringwood – who reached it independently of one another. Nonetheless, the plot had some nice touches. Such as where Lord Osprey had hidden his coin collection, obvious as it may have been, or the fitting motive to murder a collector. Not to mention the amusingly false solution proffered by the butler that turned the murder into an unfortunate accident or how the bats were used as the Hand of God in the final chapter, but this is all I can say about the story without giving away anything really vital. You have to find it out for yourself.

Appleby and the Ospreys is a short, easy to solve detective novel and had it not been for the fact that it was the last in an illustrious line that stretched all the way back to the beginning of the 20th century, it would have been a unremarkable country house mystery. Appleby and the Ospreys was the last of its kind. And with the reminiscent story-telling, it was a bit of a melancholic read. As if you're listening to your grandfather telling a story from his past for the umpteenth time, but you pretend to hear it for the first time, because it's probably the last time you'll hear him tell it.

I want to continue chipping away at my pile of Appleby novels and the next one might be Appleby and Honeybath (1983), which is a crossover with Innes' secondary series-detective, Charles Honeybath, who appeared in The Mysterious Commission (1974) and Honeybath's Haven (1977). Apparently, it also happens to be a locked room mystery!