What Happened at Hazlewood by Michael Innes
Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)
This 1947 mystery does not feature Innes’ series hero John Appleby. However, the story is set in the same world of country houses, discreet if eccentric servants, and mad and bad squires.
The obligatory murder is only yet another atrocity is a series of past evil doings that are returning to haunt the present.
As in other Innes’ mystery novels, the ending so far-fetched as to preclude guessing and to leave us readers shaking our heads at the audacity of the writer to assume that we’ll think it credible. But we do and even find it fun.
Innes’ vocabulary and allusions to Anglophone literatures will please and puzzle us English majors. Finally, many references to things and people Australian will appeal to those interested in the Sunburnt Country.
