Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Death at the President’s Lodging / Seven Suspects | 1936 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 2 | Hamlet, Revenge! | 1937 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 3 | Lament for a Maker | 1938 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 4 | Stop Press / The Spider Strikes | 1939 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 5 | The Secret Vanguard | 1940 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 6 | There Came Both Mist and Snow / A Comedy of Terrors | 1940 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 7 | Appleby on Ararat | 1941 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 8 | The Daffodil Affair | 1942 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 9 | The Weight of the Evidence | 1943 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 10 | Appleby’s End | 1945 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 11 | A Night of Errors | 1948 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 12 | Operation Pax / The Paper Thunderbolt | 1951 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 13 | A Private View / One-Man Show / Murder Is an Art | 1952 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 14 | Appleby Plays Chicken / Death On a Quiet Day | 1957 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 15 | The Long Farewell | 1958 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 16 | Hare Sitting Up | 1959 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 17 | Silence Observed | 1961 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 18 | A Connoisseur’s Case / The Crabtree Affair | 1962 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 19 | The Bloody Wood | 1966 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 20 | Appleby At Allington / Death By Water | 1968 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 21 | A Family Affair / Picture of Guilt | 1969 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 22 | Death at the Chase | 1970 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 23 | An Awkward Lie | 1971 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 24 | The Open House | 1972 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 25 | Appleby’s Answer | 1973 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 26 | Appleby’s Other Story | 1974 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 27 | The Gay Phoenix | 1976 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 28 | The Ampersand Papers | 1978 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 29 | Sheiks and Adders | 1982 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 30 | Appleby and Honeybath | 1983 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 31 | Carson’s Conspiracy | 1984 | Michael Innes | Buy |
| 32 | Appleby and the Ospreys | 1986 | Michael Innes | Buy |
The Inspector Appleby series by Michael Innes (the pen name of Oxford professor J.I.M. Stewart) spans fifty years of British detective fiction. Sir John Appleby first appears in Death at the President’s Lodging (1936) as a Detective Inspector at Scotland Yard.
Over the course of the series, Appleby rises to become Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and continues solving crimes after retirement. The mysteries are set in the rarefied world of academia, country houses, and the British establishment.
Innes’s wit and literary sophistication defined “donnish detective fiction.” Julian Symons classified him among the “farceurs” whose mysteries were intellectual games with detection on the side.