Author Information
Michael Innes's Latest Book

Newest Release

  • Bibliography:
    60 Books (1 Series)
  • First Book:
    January 1971
  • Latest Book:
    October 2018
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Full Series List in Order

A Sir John Appleby Mystery

3 - Lament for a Maker (Jun-1985)
4 - Stop Press ()
5 - The Secret Vanguard (Oct-1990)
6 - There Came Both Mist and Snow ()
9 - The Weight of the Evidence (Oct-1990)
13 - A private view ()
17 - The Long Farewell (Feb-1991)
18 - Hare Sitting Up (Jul-1991)
19 - Silence Observed (Jan-1988)
26 - The Open House (Nov-1982)
30 - The Gay Phoenix (Nov-1981)
31 - The Ampersand Papers (1979)
A Connoisseur's Case ()
Appleby Talks Again ()
Operation pax ()
Appleby on Ararat (1971)
Appleby Talking (Sep-1973)
The Appleby File (1976)
Hamlet, Revenge! (Jun-1976)
Lord Mullion's Secret (Dec-1981)
Appleby's End (Jul-1983)
The Bloody Wood (Oct-1983)
Sheiks and Adders (Nov-1983)
Carson's Conspiracy (Nov-1984)
Appleby and Honeybath (Dec-1984)
Appleby's Answer (Oct-1985)
The Mysterious Commission (Dec-1985)
Appleby's Other Story (Apr-1986)
Appleby and the Ospreys (Jun-1987)
A Night of Errors (Jun-1989)
Death at the President's Lodging (Jul-1989)
The Daffodil Affair (Sep-1990)
Death by Water (Jan-1991)
The Crabtree Affair (Jan-1991)
Awkward Lie (Sep-1991)
Death at the Chase (Jul-1993)
A Family Affair (Apr-2001)
Appleby Plays Chicken (Apr-2001)

Book List in Order: 60 titles



  • This crime story with Scotland Yard''s John Appleby is set on a desert island in the Pacific ocean. Michael Innes, who also wrote under his own name, J.I.M.Stewart, and has published numerous novels and short stories featuring John Appleby.



  • A collection of mystery stories culled from the pages of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine features stories by Dorothy Sayers, Margery Allingham, Michael Innes, and others....




  • There are fifteen stories in this compelling collection, including “Poltergeist” -- when Appleby's wife tells him that her aunt is experiencing trouble with a poltergeist, he is amused but dismissive, until he discovers that several priceless art...



  • A Scotland Yard detective probes a high-society house party for someone rotten when a government official is murdered in this classic British mystery. Preparations are underway for a grand party at Scamnum Court, the sweeping English country estate o...



  • Sebastian Holme was a painter who, as the exhibition catalogue recorded, had met a tragic death during a foreign revolution. Art dealer Braunkopf has made a small fortune from the exhibition. Unfortunately, Holme turns up at the private view in th...



  • The Simney family, of Hazlewood Hall, have a dubious history. Sir George Simney, who was travelling in Australia before the baronetcy fell to him, sleeps with a shotgun by his side. When he is found dead in the library, the Reverend Adrian Deamer wil...





  • While Appleby is strolling along a Cornish beach, he narrowly escapes being struck by a body falling down a cliff. The body is that of Dr Sutch, an archivist, and he has fallen from the North Tower of Treskinnick Castle, home of Lord Ampersand. Two p...






  • When portrait-painter and occasional detective, Charles Honeybath, pays a visit to his old friend Edwin Lightfoot, there are a few surprises in store. Edwin''s irksome wife is packing her bags, while Edwin is indulging in an eccentric game of pret...



  • When tycoon, Charles Povey, is killed in a bizarre boating accident, his corrupt, look-alike brother, Arthur, adopts his identity and his financial empire. But the charade becomes complicated when one of Charles''s many mistresses sees through the...



  • At Mullion Castle, sumptuous stately home, we meet the Earl and his family, who include his delightful daughters Patty and Boosie, and dotty Great-aunt Camilla. Old school chum, Charles Honeybath, who has been commissioned to paint a portrait of t...



  • When Inspector Appleby''s car breaks down on a deserted road one dark night, he happens upon an imposing mansion, whose windows are all illuminated. His sense of curiosity gets the better of him when he discovers that the front door is wide open, ...




  • A Scotland Yard detective is snowed in with a strange family and a killer with a lethal passion for literature in this classic British mystery. Something’s afoot in the village of Snarl. Incidents include animals turned to stone and ominous tombsto...



  • An assorted party of guests have gathered at Charne, home of Charles Martineau and his ailing wife, Grace, including Sir John Appleby and his wife, Judith. Appleby''s suspicions are soon aroused with the odd behaviour of Charles, and the curious l...



  • When half of the guests at a charity masquerade fête at Drool Court turn up dressed as sheiks, it must be more than pure coincidence. One of them is the real thing, however, and Sir John Appleby, master detective, discovers that he is in grav...



  • From a British Golden Age author “in a class by himself among detective story writers,” Scotland Yard Inspector Appleby helps a student solve a murder (The Times Literary Supplement).On holiday in the English countryside with his fellow universit...








  • George Gadberry, 'resting actor', packs his bags and heads for obscurity when the Tax Inspector beckons. Then he receives a mysterious invitation and a proposition that could lead to enormous riches. Wealthy imbiber, Nicholas Comberford, wants Geo...



  • Businessman Carl Carson decides to make a dash for South America to escape the economic slump, leaving his home and his barmy wife. But he has a problem - if his company were seen to be drawing in its horns, it wouldn''t last a week. His solution ...



  • Every English mansion has a locked room, and Grinton Hall is no exception - the library has hidden doors and passages?and a corpse. But when the corpse goes missing, Sir John Appleby and Charles Honeybath have an even more perplexing case on their ha...



  • A London detective investigates when a troubled Scottish laird takes a fall in this classic British mystery by the author of Hamlet, Revenge!. Strange things are happening around the remote Castle Erchany, located in the Scottish Highlands. The miser...



  • One of the Appleby crime novels. In a West Country village Priscilla Pringle, writer of clerical detective stories, becomes involved in one of her own ingeniously constructed plots. Luckily Sir John Appleby, retired Metropolitan Police Commissione...



  • Portrait painter, Charles Honeybath, is intrigued when he is visited by a mysterious Mr Peach and is commissioned to paint an anonymous, aristocratic sitter, known only as ‘Mr X’, whom relatives claim is insane. Under cover of night, H...



  • During a walk to Elvedon House, palatial home of the Tythertons, Sir John Appleby and Chief Constable Colonel Pride are stunned to find a police van and two cars parked outside. Wealthy Maurice Tytherton has been found shot dead, and Appleby is fa...



  • Available to download for the very first time, the fantastic Inspector Appleby series by celebrated crime writer Michael Innes.

    Clusters, a great country house, is troubled by bats, as Lord and Lady Osprey complain to their guests, who inclu...









  • Respected Fine Art experts are deceived in one of the most intriguing murder cases Inspector Appleby has ever faced, beginning with Gribble, a collector of forgeries whose latest acquisition is found to be a forged forgery In the words of Appleby hi...



  • An ex"Scotland Yard inspector is pulled out of retirement to investigate a murder and a family’s fiery legacy in this classic British mystery. Sir John Appleby has left Scotland Yard behind to retire to the country -- but there’s no escaping cr...



  • A Scotland Yard inspector holds the key when a college professor is shot behind a series of locked gates in this classic British mystery series opener. The usually quiet campus of St. Anthony’s College is abuzz with talk of murder. Someone shot Pro...



  • A Scotland Yard detective probes a string of strange disappearances and paranormal phenomena in this classic British mystery adventure. Insp. John Appleby has his hands full. It begins when his aunt’s horse, Daffodil, disappears from her stable in ...



  • A Scotland Yard detective investigates a peculiar case of murder, poetry, kidnapping, and German spies in this classic British wartime thriller. Insp. John Appleby is puzzled by the death of Philip Ploss. Who would want to kill such a harmless, quiet...



  • An erudite Scotland Yard detective investigates after a professor meets a hellish end with a heavenly body in this classic British mystery. When Professor Pluckrose is found dead in his deckchair on the campus of a provincial English university, it l...








  • The head of Scotland Yard probes the suspicious death of a Shakespearean scholar with a collection of secrets in this classic British mystery. Lewis Packford, an Elizabethan scholar, is found shot in his library. It was rumored Packford recently acqu...



  • Scotland Yard’s director and a school headmaster team up to find a missing biological warfare expert in this classic, Cold War"era mystery thriller. At the height of the Cold War, one of Britain’s top-secret scientists is missing. Prof. Howard ...



  • Cranston was preoccupied with his mistress when the man came out of the sea. The man was exhausted and almost naked and he was being chased. Cranston helped him, but subsequent events often made him wish that he hadn''t. For it messed up his love ...




  • Sir John Appleby’s son, Bobby, assumes his father’s detective role in this baffling crime. When Bobby finds a dead man in a bunker on a golf course, he notices something rather strange - the first finger of the man’s right hand i...



  • Sir John Appleby, retired Chief Commissioner, thinks Martyn Ashmore is suffering from senile delusions. Ashmore has accused Sir John of wanting to kill him. However after a large stone block falls from a roof and the two men narrowly escape death, Si...



  • All he said was "London, a Poem". The tobacconist took Meredith's murmur to be the password and ushered him into the headquarters of Europe's art thieves. And by the end of that day, the mild scholar found a talent for acting, rescued a girl and a br...



  • David was hiking across Dartmoor, pleased to have escaped the oppressively juvenile and sometimes perilous behaviour of his fellow undergraduates. As far as he could tell, he was the only human being for miles - but it turns out that he was the on...



  • Over a period of twenty years, a series of highly elaborate art hoaxes have been perpetrated at carefully time intervals, and in each case, the victim has a very good reason for keeping quiet. Inspector Appleby's interest is kindled by an amusing ...



  • Appleby Talks About Crime is a collection of 18 previously uncollected mystery stories by Michael Innes, who is best known for his Inspector Appleby crime series. Many are told by Appleby himself to the six-member mystery club, and are all as thri...






  • From a British crime author “in a class by himself among detective story writers,” twenty-three short mysteries featuring the brilliant Inspector Appleby (The Times Literary Supplement).It appears Inspector Appleby is ready to tell all in this mu...



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    From a British mystery author “in a class by himself among detective story writers,” eighteen classic crime stories, perfect for astute armchair detectives (The Times Literary Supplement).Scandal is at stake for London’s fashionable society whe...




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    When an American multimillionaire is keen to buy an Elizabethan manor, she comes up against fierce opposition from a young boy, Jay, and his band of bowmen, who are prepared to defend the manor and its nonagenarian owner against all comers. It seems ...



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    When John Appleby's wife, Judith, sets eyes on Scroop House, she insists that they introduce themselves to the ownersa suggestion that makes her sometimes reserved husband turn very pale. When Judith hears the village gossip about the grand house, sh...



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    Humphrey Paxton, the son of one of Britain's leading atomic boffins, has taken to carrying a shotgun to 'shoot plotters and blackmailers and spies'. His new tutor, the plodding Mr Thewless, suggests that Humphrey might be overdoing it somewhat. Bu...



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    The forbears of Sir John Jory, of New Hall, would seem to have committed several foul acts, including tomb-robbery and murder. Old Hall, the family's former residence, is now a University. Biographer Colin Clout, engaged to write an account of one...



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    In this chilling classic British mystery thriller, a Scotland Yard inspector and his sister search for her missing fiancé in a city of vanishing people. Petty con man Alfred Routh thinks a place like Milton Manor outside Oxford will have something n...



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    From a British Golden Age author “in a class by himself among detective story writers,” Sir John Appleby solves an art world crime (The Times Literary Supplement).When Sir John Appleby is persuaded by Lady Appleby to attend an art exhibit, he bel...



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    A London detective investigates after a fictional character seems to come to life to harass his creator in this classic British mystery. Richard Eliot began writing crime novels to fund his son’s education. The protagonist, known as “the Spider,...



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    A Scotland Yard detective investigates when gunfire disrupts an aristocratic family’s Christmas celebrations in this classic British mystery. The relatives of Sir Basil Roper are gathering to celebrate Christmas at the family’s ancestral home in ...


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Michael Innes has published 60 books.

Michael Innes does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, Appleby Talks, was published in October 2018.

The first book by Michael Innes, Appleby on Ararat, was published in January 1971.

Yes. Michael Innes has 1 series.