My last reading experience with the 1954 suspense story The Whisper in the Gloom was about 15 years ago. At that time, I was in the process of reading all 16 of Cecil Day-Lewis's Nigel Strangeways mysteries that he wrote under the pseudonym of Nicholas Blake. Back then, Whisper struck me as a well-intentioned but rather unremarkable boys-and-secret agents yarn, with a story that tested the reader's patience to make it to the end. I remembered it as not bad, just not nearly as good as the many Strangeways whodunit? mysteries that came before it.
A revisit and a determined vow to accept the book on its own genre and era terms did not move the opinion needle much.
A revisit and a determined vow to accept the book on its own genre and era terms did not move the opinion needle much.
It also wasn't quite the listless experience I had feared, although it's hard not to feel like the plotline loses some adult energy with its focus on a group of resourceful London boys: Golden Age puzzle plotting is replaced with children's adventure moments (albeit matter-of-life-and-death ones), and amateur detective Nigel Strangeways is more or less relegated to bystander and Concerned Citizen.
Brainy 12-year old Bert Hale is excited to test his motorized toy boat, an assembled and upgraded recent invention, in the round pond of Kensington Gardens. A larger drama unfolds in the park, however, and a man dying from a sudden stab wound grabs the boat and conceals a hastily scrawled message on a piece of paper in its hull. Because of this, Bert and his friend Foxy are soon drawn into a conspiracy. The man's killers, fearing that the paper might carry an incriminating clue to a future crime, set out to retrieve the message and silence Bert before their plans are exposed.
The set-up is a familiar one to most readers of crime fiction, a variation of the innocent man who knows too much plotline. There is also little mystery about the direction in which the syndicate's criminal plans might lie; Blake maps out the intersection of boyish enthusiasm and adult international espionage right from the book's first page.
Brainy 12-year old Bert Hale is excited to test his motorized toy boat, an assembled and upgraded recent invention, in the round pond of Kensington Gardens. A larger drama unfolds in the park, however, and a man dying from a sudden stab wound grabs the boat and conceals a hastily scrawled message on a piece of paper in its hull. Because of this, Bert and his friend Foxy are soon drawn into a conspiracy. The man's killers, fearing that the paper might carry an incriminating clue to a future crime, set out to retrieve the message and silence Bert before their plans are exposed.
The set-up is a familiar one to most readers of crime fiction, a variation of the innocent man who knows too much plotline. There is also little mystery about the direction in which the syndicate's criminal plans might lie; Blake maps out the intersection of boyish enthusiasm and adult international espionage right from the book's first page.
A newspaper sheet wrapped itself round Bert's leg. He rubbed his eyes, into which the wind had puffed some dust, and stamping the newspaper flat, read the headlines: SOVIET DELEGATION HERE TOMORROW - IS IT PEACE?
Despite the rather unsurprising plot and its inevitable sequences of events, Blake creates a supporting cast of characters that is nicely drawn and given some room to breathe. An old woman, skirting senility, becomes Bert's unpredictable caretaker when he is kidnapped; one of the assassins, we learn, is known as The Quack, a former surgeon from the U.S. whose drug dependency has made him a useful and dedicated instrument of death among criminal circles; and Bert's best friend, the resourceful Foxy, is nicely delineated as his own street-smart character, one with a raft of siblings and a stake in the family business, where he sells market wares from a barrow. The villains of the piece, including the charismatic and cruel aristocrat Alec Grey, also manufacture a defined menace that elevates them slightly above the predictable roles they play within the melodrama.
The Whisper in the Gloom is also the book where readers are introduced to sculptor artist Claire Massenger, Nigel Strangeways' attractive new girlfriend. One interesting detail is that Nigel chooses not to reveal to Claire his penchant for detection and relationship with Superintendent Blount, although these secrets prove impossible to keep after he is coshed on the head. Other than being the recipient of a physical attack, Strangeways isn't given much to do here, as most of the orchestrations originate from the police, the criminals, or the boys Bert and Foxy. There is a neat turn with the dying message – for why would the man write Bert Hale's name and age on the paper? – and a well-staged burning house rescue that precedes and betters the familiar find-and-stop-the-assassin climax of the final chapter.
The Whisper in the Gloom is also the book where readers are introduced to sculptor artist Claire Massenger, Nigel Strangeways' attractive new girlfriend. One interesting detail is that Nigel chooses not to reveal to Claire his penchant for detection and relationship with Superintendent Blount, although these secrets prove impossible to keep after he is coshed on the head. Other than being the recipient of a physical attack, Strangeways isn't given much to do here, as most of the orchestrations originate from the police, the criminals, or the boys Bert and Foxy. There is a neat turn with the dying message – for why would the man write Bert Hale's name and age on the paper? – and a well-staged burning house rescue that precedes and betters the familiar find-and-stop-the-assassin climax of the final chapter.
The Whisper in the Gloom may lack the charm and fair-play quality of earlier Strangeways mysteries – this is a tale that unfolds and announces rather than challenges and confounds – but it is a decent suspense story with bouts of action and a couple satisfying set pieces. As a screenplay, this would adapt very neatly to a visual medium; Blake is aware of his pacing and works to keep the plot moving and the pot boiling. It's just that he managed it better 15 years earlier, with 1939's solid spy entry, The Smiler with the Knife.
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