Category: Nicholas Blake

Book Review: THE BEAST MUST DIE (1938) by Nicholas Blake

6/11/2019

I'm working my way through Nicholas Blake's Nigel Strangeways mystery series after having first read the books nearly 20 years ago. But this month, when I came to the excellent 1938 entry The Beast Must Die, I was reluctant to revisit it. Two reasons for this: the central premise is so vividly designed and presented that I still felt familiar with the story after all these years; and I had such a good experience the first time around that I didn't want to try it again merely to find diminishing returns.

Happily, this Beast holds up and well warrants a second look. And for mystery fans who haven't yet read the suspenseful, twisty novel, there's even more to enjoy.

A plot summary with too many specifics might telegraph or ruin some surprises, so I will limit myself to the story's inciting incident and early developments: we learn through his diary entries that mystery writer Frank Cairnes plans to identify and murder the hit-and-run motorist who killed his young son. This motivation may not be fully moral but it is sympathetic, and it doesn't take Cairnes long (especially as he happens to encounter a convenient after-the-fact eyewitness) to come up with a prime suspect, a boorish and petty garage owner named George Rattery.

It is when Cairnes insinuates himself into Rattery's circle and begins the game of cat and mouse that The Beast Must Die becomes an irresistible, page-turning tale of suspense. A murder occurs – we have been witness to Cairnes' inner thoughts and deadly plans throughout the diary's narrative – but not in the way that intended killer or intended victim expect. Nigel Strangeways is brought into the dramatic affair, and he finds a number of well-drawn characters to view as suspects, including Rattery's dour, manipulative mother, his ex-mistress who has begun to fall for Frank Cairnes, and even Rattery's bullied and emotionally fragile teenage son.

I admire author Blake/Day-Lewis's skill here to shift and blend many distinct elements of the crime story, from traditional whodunit and detection to Shakespeare-inspired cold revenge tale to a human-sized moment of modern-day tragedy. The various tones not only fit together well but also keep the story propelling forward with a what's-next urgency that later Blake novels often don't deliver. Blake's early titles are filled with clue- and character-generated attention to detail, and it is clear that he is taking seriously the challenge of crafting a satisfying fair-play mystery. Like many good writers with a similar pedigree, he may be traveling in a popular genre but he's not taking a condescending view. The moods, brooding natural settings, and pathos that are generated (interestingly, both at the beginning and very end of the story) prove highly effective, and hint at Day-Lewis’s talents as a poet who is attentive to imagery, structure, and specifics.

Even if one still finds some flaws in this Beast – there are a couple expedient coincidences for one thing, and the murderer’s rationale that inspires the commission of that crime at that moment could be viewed as either bold or foolhardy – it is still a very engaging read. Other reviews of the book can be found from Kate at crossexaminingcrime (also a reread for her, and equally good the second time around), Nick at The Grandest Game in the World, and The Puzzle Doctor at In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel.

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Book Review: THERE'S TROUBLE BREWING (1937) by Nicholas Blake

3/19/2019

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My recent revisiting of the Nigel Strangeways detective series has brought great enjoyment and a new appreciation of Nicholas Blake's work. As I (vaguely) remembered from my first exposure more than a decade and a half ago, the earliest books offer a playful, humorous spirit whose plots are full of incident and striking demises: a body in a haystack at a boys' school in A Question of Proof (1935); death by poison-injected walnut in Thou Shell of Death (1936). And now, in 1937's There's Trouble Brewing, a particularly disagreeable brewery owner appears to meet a particularly disagreeable fate: being boiled in a sealed copper vat.

One aspect I find especially admirable is how thoroughly Blake – the pseudonym for writer and future Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom Cecil Day-Lewis – commits to the fair-play mystery format, a path he traveled to augment his income while he crafted poetry. While these GAD books are filled with good humor and a fair dose of literary asides and allusions, the author never shorts the elements expected for a rousing fair-play puzzle. There are alibis to be shaken and confirmed or broken, odd clues (bits of a signet ring, a missing report) to be pondered, and a healthy variety of suspects, many whose prospects would improve with the victim handily out of the way. The reader is given access to the thoughts and tabulations of Blake's amateur detective protagonist Nigel Strangeways, and we see what Nigel sees... until the pieces rearrange to form a clear picture for him, and then we might have to wait a bit longer before Strangeways provides a final-chapter dénouement explaining it all.

In other words, Blake's 1930s titles deliver exactly what a classic mystery fan has come to comfortably expect from the genre. There is also the benefit that Blake/Day-Lewis writes very enjoyable, sometimes wry prose, and he does not shy away from extending a metaphor or making literary references. (Thou Shell of Death, especially with its title, turns partly on Strangeways' knowledge of Jacobean Revenge stage drama.) These (for me) are always amusing rather than obstructive, as when Nigel muses that being a Classics scholar was fine preparation for his current role as an investigator of murder:

"If ever, in your salad days – as one of my comic uncles calls them – you were compelled to do a Latin unseen, you'll know that it presents an accurate parallel with criminal detection. You have a long sentence, full of inversions; just a jumble of words it looks at first. That is what a crime looks like at first sight, too. The subject is a murdered man; the verb is the modus operandi, the way the crime was committed; the object is the motive. Those are the three essentials of every sentence and every crime. First you find the subject, then you look for the verb, and the two of them lead you to the object. But you have not discovered the criminal – the meaning of the whole sentence yet. There are a number of subordinate clauses, which may be clues or red-herrings, and you've got to separate them from each other in your own mind and to reconstruct them to fit and to amplify the meaning of the whole. It's an exercise in analysis and synthesis – the very best training for detectives."

In There's Trouble Brewing, Blake also adroitly handles a murder-mystery archetype, and one for whom I have a particular (masochistic?) affinity: the gleefully malevolent patriarch. Here, Eustace Bunnett is a hated town scion, an unscrupulous and lecherous old man who, as owner of the brewery, uses his power to make his workers submissive and quell complaints about dangerous work conditions and outdated equipment. It might have been out of revenge that Bunnett's innocent (and victimized) dog Truffles disappears, and his remains are found later in an open vat. The poor pet's demise could have inspired a second pressure-cooker killing, as human bones and rags are found, with all signs pointing to Eustace as the victim... while his brother Joe is nowhere to be found.

The inspector believes it's a straightforward case: Joe killed Eustace and escaped on his boat. It's possible, but Nigel wonders why the murderer subjected the victim to boiling when it wasn't necessary. He also worries about town resident and old school friend Herbert Cammison, who, with his wife, seems to be concealing a secret about Bunnett that might lead the police to their door.

And that leads me to sound one more note of admiration regarding the author's handling of genre elements. Blake assumes the puzzle-pursuing reader is smart enough to make connections and draw conclusions, so certain inferences of details that other writers might have tagged for a late-chapter reveal are offered up at the start. Through his protagonist, Blake makes no bones (!) of the fact that boiling obscures a body's fleshly identity – which may or may not be a red herring here -- and, likewise, he lets Nigel become suspicious of his amiable school friend right away. If either of those details had gone unremarked, the veteran mystery reader would be instantly on guard, but because the detective comments early on these points, we are left (rightly) wondering what Strangeways may have deduced that the armchair enthusiast has not.

A very good entry in the series, There's Trouble Brewing is worth sampling for Golden Age Detection imbibers. My fellow pub crawlers Kate at Crossexaminingcrime and Nick at The Grandest Game in the World offered their reviews too; just follow the links!

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Book Review: THOU SHELL OF DEATH (1936) by Nicholas Blake

2/3/2019

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In Nicholas Blake's second mystery to feature his amateur sleuth Nigel Strangeways, the thoughtful academic is summoned by Fergus O'Brien, a fighter pilot who has been receiving anonymous letters which say that he will be dead by Boxing Day. O'Brien seems to find the threats more amusing than alarming, and to call fate's bluff – a gambit often evident in his flying days – he invites a group of people who might each be nursing a lethal grudge to a Christmas celebration at his home.

Indeed, Nigel has his hands full analyzing O'Brien's guests and learning their histories with the ex-airman. Uncharacteristically, the detective (and others) sleeps through the night's events, and Strangeways wakes only to discover O'Brien dead in a hut separated from the main house.

Only one set of tracks in the snow leads to the hut, yet other clues – a broken cuff button, shoes that are absent but reappear later – point to murder. This suspicion is quickly confirmed when one houseguest is nearly killed from a blow to the head by an unseen assailant, while another dies from cyanide poisoning. It's a complex, confusing case, but Nigel works with the amiable (and quite generous, as GAD police figures go) Superintendent Bleakley to untangle the tale and identify motive, means, and murderer.

Thou Shell of Death is great fun for classic mystery fiction fans, since it delivers on multiple counts: it is a sneaky fair-play puzzle with all of the clues and character psychologies offered up to the reader to organize and theorize about; it is spiritedly written and often quite humorous in description and design; the suspects are distinct personalities and used within the plot to good effect; and Blake (the pen-name for poet Cecil Day-Lewis) seems to be more comfortably familiar with his protagonist here than in his previous title, A Question of Proof. The character is now less of an eccentric for the sake of color – we learn in Proof that Strangeways has to sleep under a weight of bedcovers and must constantly drink tea, quirks that are thankfully not stressed here – and instead is a man intrigued foremost by people and their motivations and mannerisms. it's a better choice and it gives Nigel some humanity, while at the same time defining him not by his quirks but rather by his intellect.

Another aspect of Thou Shell I greatly enjoy is the author's handling of the fateful backstory that explains, among other things, O'Brien's wartime recklessness in combat, the murderer's relationship to the victim, and the body count resulting from that holiday house party. The way I view it, a mystery writer can use one of three general approaches to give the reader information about Past Events that tie directly to present deeds: 1) the detective can reveal the connection and explain the significance during the iconic end-of-chapter dénouement; 2) the author can dramatize the Past Event in separate chapter sections, with the reader understanding the significance toward the end; 3) the detective (and the reader) can learn details through interviews of witnesses or contemporaries as the story progresses.

There is no right or wrong choice regarding delivery of the Past Event, but it's instructive to note how each approach affects the narrative. Thou Shell of Death uses the third method, where Strangeways starts to understand the deceased O'Brien first through a lengthy anecdote from suspect and explorer Georgia Cavendish, and then from an interview with an elderly family nurse. In both sections, Blake recreates those moments of memory and allows the characters' stories to bring the Past Event into the present. In my opinion, it's a very effective approach, as it invites the reader to add these long-ago moments to the sum of the tragedy taking place now. There's a deeper resonance because we are allowed to understand the emotions and mindsets of the characters involved.

This also made me reflect on my frequent dissatisfaction with Approach #1, wherein the detective reveals the Past Event at the conclusion of the mystery story. It often feels to me as a narrative opportunity missed, as the result runs counter to the fundamental writing maxim of "Show, don't Tell." The reader may be surprised at the revelation, but he or she is largely denied the emotional catharsis (or generation of empathy) that might occur if one is invited to experience the event via flashback or retelling.

Right away, such contemplation brought me to the literary doorstep of the formidable Agatha Christie. It seemed like a number of her mysteries favored the last-chapter reveal to unveil the significance of a past event, but my Christie reading is far from complete and my memory of her stories (read decades ago) blurry. So I consulted AC expert Brad, whose ahsweetmysteryblog is a must-read for classic mystery fans, and I asked him to weigh in on Christie's handling of past events in her books. Boy, did Brad deliver.

He reminded me – for which I'm very grateful – that Agatha Christie was a constantly experimenting and creative structurist who varied her methods to meet her story needs. I feel that her classic 1939 tale And Then There Were None is profoundly resonant in part because some of her characters are haunted by and are reliving these past moments, and because Christie allows us to access some of those memories, most notably with Vera Claythorne. While some titles do deliver the Past Event as a drawingroom surprise, many others use tragic previous events to great dramatic effect as Christie concentrates on how the past ensnares and envelops those who are unable to break free. Ordeal by Innocence (1958) and Cards on the Table (1936) are just two examples that explore this past/present frisson, while 1943's Five Little Pigs (whose alternate title, appropriately, is Murder in Retrospect) is a particular favorite of Brad's, with the author using the specter of family tragedy to haunt the lives of their now-adult characters decades later.

The discussion was a fruitful and informative one, and I'm thrilled to see that Brad has decided to share his thoughts on the intersection of past and present in Christie's work in this excellent blog entry.

One additional note: Thou Shell of Death introduces the character of Georgia Cavendish, described through most of the book's first half as having a monkey-like face and perambulating with a parrot on her shoulder. Nigel becomes smitten with the adventuress here, and, like the transformation he undergoes from his début to his follow-up, Georgia will shed her eccentricities to become a more attractive figure in future installments. Her shining moment is certainly 1939's The Smiler with the Knife, a thriller in which she inhabits the leading role.

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Book Review: A QUESTION OF PROOF (1935) by Nicholas Blake

12/30/2018

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The English boys' or girls' preparatory school has proven to be an irresistible setting for Golden Age and contemporary writers of murder mysteries. Some authors were career educators, and were able to bring to life the conflicts large and small found when a group of adolescents (and their often equally childlike instructors) is forced to share a closed community. As a result, many writer/teachers have used their on-campus observations and understanding of the milieu to create some memorable campus-set detective stories, including Michael Innes's The Weight of the Evidence (1944), Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes (1946), and Gladys Mitchell's Tom Brown's Body (1949), to name a few.

The début title in Nicholas Blake's series featuring the eccentric detective Nigel Strangeways can be added to this list. Blake was the pseudonym of Cecil Day-Lewis, an Irish-born writer who worked as a schoolteacher in Scotland and, in 1968, was named Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. Fortunately, Day-Lewis chose to supplement his income by writing mystery fiction, and 1935's A Question of Proof is the book that introduces readers to his unassuming but quirky sleuth. I will let Michael Evans, a character in Proof who has become the prime suspect in the murder of an unlikable student, offer his description of Strangeways:

"Could not stick two years [at Oxford College], the spectacle of so many quite decent youths being got at and ruined for life was too much for him. Heard that at Cambridge the hearties were still heartier and the intelligentsia even less intelligent, so decided to dispense with any further education… Traveled about for a bit, learning languages. Then settled down for a bit to investigate crime; said it was the only career left which offered scope to good manners and scientific curiosity. He's been very successful; made pots of money. He did all the stuff in the Duchess of Esk's diamonds affair and several high-hat blackmail cases which have figured less prominently in the press."

"But what's he like?"

"Like? Oh, like one of the less successful busts of T.E. Shaw. A Nordic type. He's rather faddy, by the way; his protective mechanism developed them, I daresay. But you must have water perpetually on the boil; he drinks tea at all hours of the day. And he can't sleep unless he has an enormous weight on his bed. If you don't give him enough blankets for three, you'll find that he has torn the carpets up or the curtains down."

Bust of T.E. Shaw (Lawrence)... but is it successful?

What's curious to me is that Nigel Strangeways comes across as rather a default eccentric in these mysteries; perhaps he is odd because the genre expects it. His "fads" are laid on the thickest in this début novel, but they are a collection of habits and don't better define the character's personality, which for me has always been more tabula rasa (or contemplative sponge) than memorably garrulous. Unlike, say, Hercule Poirot's fussy, precise mannerisms or Mrs. Beatrice Lestrange Bradley's physical and verbal assaults on those around her, Strangeways' behavior is not really in active service of his role as detective, nor does it physicalize his mental processes; it is peculiar to sleep under multiple blankets, but the fact doesn't really change or inform his introspective approach to investigating a crime.

There's another benefit to staging a murder mystery at a school, and it has to do both with a ready stable of on-hand suspects and the excellent narrative move of bringing chaos and disruption to a locale that operates on the regimentation of strict order and control. When Sudeley Hall student Wemyss disappears during a Sports Day exhibition and turns up dead, buried in a haystack in which Michael Evans was canoodling with the headmaster's wife, the tragic event threatens the reputation of the school and casts suspicion on the gossiping schoolmasters. Strangeways is called in to help clear his friend's name, but he is also seen as a mechanism to restore order to the troubled school by identifying the culprit. This he eventually does, but he is frustrated by a lack of empirical evidence – hence the title – and the killer is given enough rope to strike a second time.

There is a lot to appreciate in A Question of Proof, including lively comic descriptions and characterizations, literary and historical allusions, smart observations about British public school practices and quirks, and (perhaps most importantly) a mystery puzzle plot that stays busy and draws in several suspects before the detective reveals his final-chapter solution. Whether the reader feels that Blake has provided a fair-play puzzle experience will depend largely on how satisfied one is with the stated motive of the murderer. To his credit, the author makes sure all loose ends are tied up and explanations of the red herrings are provided.

While not the very best of the series, Day-Lewis/Blake nevertheless delivers an impressive first mystery and a worthy introduction of his capable, but always a little clinical and distant, detective. For me, the best Nigel Strangeways novels appear in the first half of his publishing output, and his creator should be celebrated for his enthusiasm for experimenting with style and structure within the series. Personal favorites include 1938's The Beast Must Die, a suspenseful version of the inverted-mystery tale, The Smiler with the Knife (1939), in which Nigel's wife Georgia is caught up in wartime espionage and intrigue, and Minute for Murder (1947), a clever meditation on the act of eliminating suspects.

Nick Fuller over at The Grandest Game in the World has also examined A Question of Proof (I would expect nothing less!) and has collected contemporary reviews of the book on his site.

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Book Review: THE BEAST MUST DIE (1938) by Nicholas Blake

Book Review: THERE'S TROUBLE BREWING (1937) by Nicholas Blake

Book Review: THOU SHELL OF DEATH (1936) by Nicholas Blake

Book Review: A QUESTION OF PROOF (1935) by Nicholas Blake

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