I have always enjoyed the mysteries featuring Inspector (later Sir John) Appleby, written by Michael Innes. As you might expect from an Oxford scholar, the books are witty, full of literary allusions, some of which even make sense, and above all feature Appleby's detective skills. Innes also wrote a number of stand-alones, generally more on the thriller side than "just" detective stories, and some of these are well worth your reading time even without Appleby. I think my favorite among these would be The Journeying Boy, also published on occasion as The Case of the Journeying Boy. It dates from 1949. It's an interesting hybrid - an exciting, dramatic and frequently funny thriller combined with a solid plot involving kidnapping and murder, with a teen-aged boy as one of the protagonists. Here's what I said about it (updated somewhat) when I reviewed it on the Classic Mysteries podcast several years ago:
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Accompanied by his new tutor, a teen-aged English boy sets out for a peaceful school vacation in Ireland with distant relatives. It would be fair to describe the outcome as less-than-ideal, as we encounter schemes, kidnappings, conspiracies, assault and even murder. It all happens in The Journeying Boy, by Michael Innes.
Many of Innes’s books feature the detective skills of Inspector John Appleby. But Appleby – although he is mentioned – plays no part in The Journeying Boy, one of the Innes books that is not part of a series. It is, instead, a combination of a classic mystery puzzle and a wild thriller, with an emphasis on the thriller. I think it’s also one of his finest books – and one of the most enjoyable.
Mr. Richard Thewless, an itinerant tutor, applies for a job to teach the teen-aged son of a brilliant nuclear physicist while accompanying the boy on a prolonged school vacation. The physicist, of course, is working on top-secret government projects. His son Humphrey is described, politely, as “a handful,” and in need of a tutor to help with his studies while he is visiting some distant relatives in Ireland.
But Mr. Thewless is turned down, in favor of another tutor. And that’s when strange things begin to happen.
First, the other tutor apparently backs out of the deal – and Mr. Thewless is hired.
Then, as he and Humphrey travel by train and boat to Ireland, a series of even odder events happen. On the first train, which proves to be carrying a lot of circus performers, the boy disappears, then reappears. Later, another train on which they are riding is involved in a suspicious accident, and Mr. Thewless himself finds himself kidnapped – and released – by ambulance drivers who may have been trying to capture Humphrey.
Meanwhile, back in London, police are investigating the murder of an unknown man in a movie theater, during a showing of a remarkably noisy film called Plutonium Blonde. For much of the book, the viewpoint – and narrative – will switch back and forth between the investigation in London and the exploits of Thewless and Humphrey.
If all this sounds somewhat confusing…it is so primarily in the summation, and not in the course of the novel. In fact, the reader is generally better informed about what is going on than are the police or Mr. Thewless – a device which I think makes for a very satisfying book. While the detective struggles to identify that unknown murder victim, for example, the reader will very quickly realize who it is, although the why of the murder may be obscure.
For this is a Michael Innes plot – loaded with complications, providing a great deal of action, and large quantities of humor, some of it fairly surreal. I am particularly fond of one sequence in which Mr. Thewless finds himself followed one night by people covered with – and hiding under – bedsheets as he – and they – chase each other through the halls of a dilapidated Irish castle. Be warned, however, that in typical Innes fashion, a surreal humorous episode can quickly turn into something quite horrifying.
All the same, the author’s tongue appears to be planted in his cheek rather firmly and frequently. He’s quite willing to poke fun at himself; fairly early in the book, Mr. Thewless observes – quoting now – he never read gangster stories. He never even read that milder sensational fiction, nicely top-dressed with a compost of literature and the arts, which is produced by idle persons living in colleges and rectories. Unquote, and – wouldn’t you say – quite obviously Innes, the Oxford don, referring to himself. It’s the same spirit as the self-satisfied note with which the police inspector in charge of the case observes, to himself, that, quote, the wayward Appleby, unquote, has retired from Scotland Yard – referring, of course, as I mentioned earlier, to the Inspector Appleby who features in so many other Innes novels written both before and after The Journeying Boy.
If you enjoy thrillers, you will certainly enjoy this book – in the last sixty-pages or so, the action never lets up for a moment. If you enjoy puzzles, you will find several here to satisfy your taste, as the police try to solve that murder and, in the course of doing so, come to learn about the perils faced by Thewless and Humphrey. Michael Innes juggles the plots with his usual skill, with the result that The Journeying Boy has to rank as one of his finest efforts.
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It seems as if The Journeying Boy has slipped out of print again, but Amazon's sellers appear to have a reasonable number of copies at equally reasonable prices - if you act fairly quickly. It's worth your while to try to get the book.
You can listen to the original podcast audio review by clicking here.
Next week, another Nero Wolfe mystery - And Be a Villain, by Rex Stout.