Sheiks and Adders by the Scottish author Michael Innes was first published in 1982, by Gollancz. Whenever I see those yellow Gollancz covers nowadays I’m just about grinding my teeth, since I read about how badly Victor Gollancz treated his editor Diana Athill, paying her paltry wages for years. Anyway, to the book.
Sir John Appleby has retired from Scotland Yard, and he’s very happy to be out of it, but when he visits a summer charity fete which happens to be a fancy dress do, he gets involved in a murder. Appleby is dressed as Robin Hood and he’s amused to bump into his replacement at Scotland Yard, as he’s also dressed as Robin Hood! It seems that the fete is being held in the grounds of a house which belongs to a businessman who has recently moved there, and Scotland Yard has had a tip-off that there’s going to be trouble.
A wealthy Arab sheik is going to be attending, is his life going to be in danger? To add to the difficulties lots of men have decided to dress up as Arabs, it’s impossible to figure out who is the real sheik. One thing that Appleby knows for sure – for some reason the owner of the house had forbidden his daughter’s boyfriend to come dressed as an Arab!
This was quite an amusing read. Michael Innes was also an academic and he liked to make sure that his readers knew that, so there are a lot of literary allusions as usual, I know that some people find that annoying, I just find it quite funny!