1 MARCH 1957, Page 25

Appleby Plays Chicken. By Michael Innes. (Gollancz, 12s. 6d.) From

the same academic groves:if not from quite so high is bough, comes this fantasia on the twin themes of switched corpse and pursuit—nOt quite so 'donnish in manner as this sometimes over-literary writer can be (though the scene is an undergraduates' reading- party : do they still go on?) but prettily written and quite exciting in a subdued, Senior-Common- Room sort of way.