A FAMILY AFFAIR
US publication: 1969
Author: Michael Innes
Detective:
Genre: Novel
Plot
summary and comments: 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 dinner-party anecdote - when he enlists the help of his wife and son, the ensuing investigation is truly a family affair. The scenes shift swiftly between glorious stately homes and the not-so-glorious art gallery of the irrepressibly dubious Hildebert Braunkopf.
::READERS REVIEWS::
Boring! - I tried, I really tried to get into this book. I made it more than half way and decided I didn't care who pulled all these hoaxes. It was so bad, I removed all the other Innes books from my shopping cart.
Alternate title: A Family Affair - The art thefts are as freakish as they are profitable. In the first known instance, someone impersonates a Very Distinguished Royal personage who is known to accept gifts from her hosts--a painting or a piece of mine host's bric-a-brac that she fancies would look charming in her own palace: in this case, it is an early Siennese Madonna that enchants her. The gift is graciously offered and received, but when the backwoods peer learns that his visiting Royal was a fake, he is too embarrassed to pursue the matter.
Over the course of fifteen years, similiarly cunning thefts occur, and each time the victim is too mortified to pursue the matter. Sir John Appleby was the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police (New Scotland Yard) when a couple of the incidents were reported, but they were underneath his radar screen at the time. Now he is retired and his wife is trying to turn him into a horticulturist. When he visits his son at Oxford, Appleby hears the story of bogus Royal from one of Bobby's classmates and decides to do a quiet investigation of his own.
He soon encounters peers, art dealers, and business magnates who have been touched up by the same audacious thief, who never uses the same ploy twice but always succeeds in humiliating his victims into silence.
Sir John decides to set up a sting of his own.
"A Family Affair" (1969), also known as "Picture of Guilt" is an exquisitely literate satire as well as a satisfying mystery. Michael Innes focuses his laser wit on subjects as various as Oxford social clubs, rugby, snobbish peers, and acquisitive Royals. As you might guess from the title, Sir John's wife and son are also involved in the case of the cunning art thief.
::AMAZON REVIEWS::
Boring!I tried, I really tried to get into this book. I made it more than half way and decided I didn't care who pulled all these hoaxes. It was so bad, I removed all the other Innes books from my shopping cart.
Alternate title: A Family AffairThe art thefts are as freakish as they are profitable. In the first known instance, someone impersonates a Very Distinguished Royal personage who is known to accept gifts from her hosts--a painting or a piece of mine host's bric-a-brac that she fancies would look charming in her own palace: in this case, it is an early Siennese Madonna that enchants her. The gift is graciously offered and received, but when the backwoods peer learns that his visiting Royal was a fake, he is too embarrassed to pursue the matter.
Over the course of fifteen years, similiarly cunning thefts occur, and each time the victim is too mortified to pursue the matter. Sir John Appleby was the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police (New Scotland Yard) when a couple of the incidents were reported, but they were underneath his radar screen at the time. Now he is retired and his wife is trying to turn him into a horticulturist. When he visits his son at Oxford, Appleby hears the story of bogus Royal from one of Bobby's classmates and decides to do a quiet investigation of his own.
He soon encounters peers, art dealers, and business magnates who have been touched up by the same audacious thief, who never uses the same ploy twice but always succeeds in humiliating his victims into silence.
Sir John decides to set up a sting of his own.
"A Family Affair" (1969), also known as "Picture of Guilt" is an exquisitely literate satire as well as a satisfying mystery. Michael Innes focuses his laser wit on subjects as various as Oxford social clubs, rugby, snobbish peers, and acquisitive Royals. As you might guess from the title, Sir John's wife and son are also involved in the case of the cunning art thief.