{"id":19485,"date":"2024-04-01T19:44:46","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T23:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=19485"},"modified":"2024-04-01T19:44:46","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T23:44:46","slug":"the-long-farewell-by-michael-innes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=19485","title":{"rendered":"‘The Long Farewell,’ by Michael Innes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I knew of Michael Innes <\/strong>(real name J. I. M. Stewart), one of the foremost classic English mystery novelists. I\u2019ve probably read one or two of his stories before, though I don\u2019t remember them. A deal on The Long Farewell<\/a><\/em> persuaded me to buy it. It wasn\u2019t bad, but it shows its age (the book was published in 1958. I suppose I have to agree that that\u2019s a long time ago, though I remember the year well).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our hero, Sir John Appleby, Commissioner of Scotland Yard, visits his friend Lewis Packford, an amateur scholar of Renaissance literature, while they are both on holiday in Italy. Lewis appears distracted, and makes several references to amazing possible discoveries of literary documents, and also to forgery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On his return to England, Sir John is shocked to learn that his friend Lewis has shot himself to death at his family estate. He had recently made a sensational announcement about purchasing an old Italian book of stories \u2013 with notes in Shakespeare\u2019s own hand in the margins of the Othello story. As if that wasn\u2019t enough, Lewis has been discovered, posthumously, to be a bigamist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir John is suspicious, and heads out to the Packford estate. He finds that Lewis\u2019 brother has kept all the people who were present at the time of the death on site as guests, so Sir John is able to re-interview them all. Slowly he pieces the wicked plot together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mystery in The Long Farewell<\/em> was all right. The characters were all right too. It was the presentation that slowed it down. Author Innes clung to Victorian \u2013 or at least Edwardian \u2013 literary conventions. The language is flowery, and the characters tend to express themselves in the style of literary essays. The book was a slow read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s nothing really wrong with The Long Farewell<\/em>, if you like this sort of thing. But if you\u2019re looking for pulse-pounding entertainment, I’d advise you to go elsewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I knew of Michael Innes (real name J. I. M. Stewart), one of the foremost classic English mystery novelists. I\u2019ve probably read one or two of his stories before, though I don\u2019t remember them. A deal on The Long Farewell persuaded me to buy it. It wasn\u2019t bad, but it shows its age (the book … Continue reading ‘The Long Farewell,’ by Michael Innes<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[5128,5126,5127],"class_list":["post-19485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-inspector-appleby","tag-michael-innes","tag-the-long-farewell"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19485"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19487,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19485\/revisions\/19487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}