[1] It is the fourteenth novel in the long-running series by Innes featuring John Appleby, a senior detective with the Metropolitan Police.

Anthony Berkeley reviewing the novel in The Guardian observed "Michael Innes's appeal is to the intelligence, sometimes almost too much so; but in Appleby Plays Chicken he tells a straightforward story, based upon blackmail.

Straightforward, that is, for this author; for there are the usual pleasant Innes quirks, such as an exhausted fugitive coming suddenly upon a point-to-point race and making his escape by mounting a riderless horses and joining in.

A Oxbridge student holidaying in Devon with friends takes part one night in a game of chicken.

The student begins to realise as well that Appleby has brought him there as a bait, hoping to lure the killers back to finish him off so he can arrest them.