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Book Review: THE WHISPER IN THE GLOOM (1954) by Nicholas Blake

9/22/2019

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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.


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.

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.

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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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Book Review: THE DREADFUL HOLLOW (1953) by Nicholas Blake

7/30/2019

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There is something rather delicious about an outbreak of poison pen letters affecting a tranquil community, and I have always had an affinity for mystery fiction that uses this rather unpleasant method to shake up its characters. Part of the appeal lies in the fact that crime stories are all about concealment and revelation, about the hypocrisy of the public appearance against the private act, and there is the added bonus that a sprinkling of anonymous accusations (real or imagined) can upset guilty and innocent alike and puncture the artificial posturing of a proudly "normal" and "decent" society.

The villagers of Prior's Umborne, it seems, have a malignant agitator in their midst. Residents are receiving some very unflattering – and often inflammatory – anonymous letters, and financier Sir Archibald Blick hires Strangeways to find the source. He quickly realizes that there is a lot to investigate, as Prior's Umborne is home to its share of eccentric figures, including Blick's two sons, affable Charles and enigmatic Stanford; sisters Rosebay and Celandine Chantmerle, the former a scheming neurotic and the latter suffering from psychosomatic paralysis; and Daniel Durdle, a religious zealot and rumored illegitimate offspring of a powerful family.

Although Nigel believes he can identify the poison pen writer at an early stage, tensions and dangers escalate when Celandine is presented with a pair of binoculars rigged to shoot needles out of the eyepiece when the focus is adjusted. The Blicks have access to a machine workshop, but so does Durdle, and it's possible that the cruel gift was the result of a conspiracy. When the secret relationship between Charles and Rosebay becomes known, Sir Archibald – a fervent proponent of eugenics – flies into a rage and threatens to cut his son out of the family legacy. His objections are short-lived, literally: the next morning he is found dead at the bottom of a quarry.

The Dreadful Hollow finds Nicholas Blake poised perfectly between the puzzle plotting of his earliest books – plotting at which he excels far beyond the average mystery fiction author, by the way – and the brooding character psychology that will consume some of his later titles (see 1961's The Worm of Death, for example). But here, the twin interests are given the liberty to complement each other, and it is a mostly successful blending of classic detection and the character-based psychoanalysis that will largely replace it as crime literature moves through the 20th century. 

I have always admired Blake's fair-play clue crafting, and it is still evident here. He refuses to condescend to the reader, and often I found myself making a deductive connection only to have Nigel Strangeways voice the same idea before extrapolating past it and continuing to connect the dots. Where a lesser writer may have left a clue observed but unexplained until the denouement, Blake underlines it and works out the possibilities on the spot.

One example: a row of crushed wildflowers near the quarry means a) that Celandine's electric wheelchair was here recently, and b) it might not have been manned by Celandine, since she is a lover of nature and would not drive over the flowers if she could help it. But then Nigel continues to hypothesize: c) the track is not deep enough if the wheelchair carried the weight of two bodies, Celandine's and Archibald Blick's; d) the chair's motor was drained the day of the murder, so Celandine could not use it to drive up to the quarry and back with a dead or unconscious Sir Archibald, et cetera. It is quite enjoyable to play Watson while the detective is doing some real-time theorizing; many mystery writers let their creations sit on their hypotheses until it's time for the drawing room reveal, but this has never been the case with Blake and Strangeways, and that's to be commended.

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Even with strong deduction on display, Hollow still sounds a few hollow notes. There's a mid-book digression on the natural tendency of women to lie which creates a chauvinistic bump, and some readers over at Goodreads, reviewing the book this month in the Reading the Detectives group moderated by Judy, Susan, and Sandy, justly questioned a point of physiology Blake employs in the solution. Still, this tale of secrets coming to the surface in a village pushed to its breaking point is engaging and fun, and it builds to a satisfying and dramatic climax that feels quite cinematic in its approach. A worthy entry in the Nigel Strangeways series and a strong addition to the subgenre of poison pen plotlines in mystery fiction.

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

6/11/2019

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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.

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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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