From London Far

Rating:
Summary: Comedy crossed with Buchan
Review: Among Innes's large and highly uneven output, this most gleeful and exuberant "thriller" stands out as one of his clearest triumphs. It is the diverting story of an innocent (middle-aged scholar named Meredith) abroad, plunged into murder (one of which he commits, the other he instigates) and crime (the doings of the International Society for the Diffusion of Cultural Objects), against a picturesque backdrop of warehouse, ruined castle and Highland moor, and a lunatic nouveau riche connoisseur's American mansion. Dialogue splendid, and the humour makes this Innes's funniest book: not only mild academic jests, but superb farce, largely provided by the pick of the gallery of certifiable lunatics: an endearing psychologist who is as mad as his patients (whom he believes have abducted him by furniture van to be instructed in sexology), who begins by believing that the furniture vans that keep following him are psychosexual hallucinations; to keep himself sane, he refuses to believe in any of the adventures that ensue when he is kidnapped. Now there's an idea for modern drama!

Rating:
Summary: Comedy crossed with Buchan
Review: Among Innes's large and highly uneven output, this most gleeful and exuberant "thriller" stands out as one of his clearest triumphs. It is the diverting story of an innocent (middle-aged scholar named Meredith) abroad, plunged into murder (one of which he commits, the other he instigates) and crime (the doings of the International Society for the Diffusion of Cultural Objects), against a picturesque backdrop of warehouse, ruined castle and Highland moor, and a lunatic nouveau riche connoisseur's American mansion. Dialogue splendid, and the humour makes this Innes's funniest book: not only mild academic jests, but superb farce, largely provided by the pick of the gallery of certifiable lunatics: an endearing psychologist who is as mad as his patients (whom he believes have abducted him by furniture van to be instructed in sexology), who begins by believing that the furniture vans that keep following him are psychosexual hallucinations; to keep himself sane, he refuses to believe in any of the adventures that ensue when he is kidnapped. Now there's an idea for modern drama!