Death At The President's Lodging (Inspector Appleby Mystery) Review

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(More customer reviews)My favorite Inspector Appleby mysteries take place in an academic setting. This subset of his mystery novels is undoubtedly a byproduct of the many years that Michael Innes (whose real name was John Innes Mackintosh Stewart) spent laboring in the halls of academia. Among the seats of learning where he taught are Queen's University in Belfast, and the universities of Oxford, Adelaide, and Leeds.
The author could not help but involve a legion of eccentric, pompous, and even murderous professors in the death of the president of St. Anthony's College (modeled after the colleges at Oxford University). Their academic spats and bumblings are a good part of what makes this book readable. Innes is wickedly funny when it comes to poking fun at the habits of his donnish colleagues and undergraduates.
"Death at the President's Lodging" starts out as a locked room mystery where the only suspects are locked into the college grounds for the night. The president's body is found in his own library, but we gradually learn that the corpse was subject to a great deal of postmortem perambulation as his colleagues try to establish their own alibis and manufacture evidence that points to their academic enemies. Nothing is as it first seems, not even time of death.
A trio of undergraduates provides the comic relief as they chase one of the suspects (supposedly at an archeological dig in the Middle East) across the English countryside and finally deliver him to Inspector Appleby in a large wicker clothes basket (shades of Falstaff!).
As Inspector Appleby winds his way through the skeins of plot and counter-plot created by great intellects gone murderously askew, his intuition is played off against the rather unimaginative plodding of local Constable Dodd. Dodd is a bit of a dry stick compared to the irrepressible Appleby, who in his very first appearance in this mystery (published in 1936), is already showing signs of what his successor at Scotland Yard refers to as his 'waywardness.'
Enjoy Inspector John Appleby's literary debut for the hijinks of the undergraduates, the plots and counter-plots of their devious professors, and the erudite style of their donnish creator. The plot is overly complex, but it is brilliantly resolved and a lot of fun to read.

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Inspector Appleby is called to St Anthony's College,where the President has been murdered in his Lodging. Scandal aboundswhen it becomes clear that the only people with any motive to murderhim are the only people who had the opportunity – because thePresident's Lodging opens off Orchard Ground, which is locked atnight, and only the Fellows of the College have keys...

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