Reading the Detectives discussion

This is the fourth in the Nigel Strangeways crime series, written by Nicholas Blake (pseudonym of poet Cecil Day-Lewis) and was first published in 1938. It was adapted into an Argentinian film in 1952, and a French/Italian film, "The Man Must Die," in 1969.

Respected crime writer Frank Cairns plots the perfect murder - a murder that he himself will commit.

Cairns intends to murder the hit-and-run driver who killed his young son, but when his intended victim is found dead and Cairns becomes the prime suspect, the author insists that he has been framed. An old friend of Cairns calls in private detective Nigel Strangeways, who must unravel a fiendishly plotted mystery if he is to discover what really happened to George Rattery.

The Beast Must Die is one of Nicholas Blake's most acclaimed novels and was picked by the Observer as one of the 1,000 novels everyone must read.

Please feel free to post spoilers in this thread.

This story was so engrossing and diabolical too. I did not see the ending coming that's for sure! I liked the way Blake wrote Nigel's character in this story. He has less, how should I say, buffoonery and seemingly contrived eccentricities. I definitely look forward to continuing the series.

I also found the story riveting and really liked the use of the diary. I never guessed how the murderer was using the diary so was completely surprised by the ending. I so wished the victim's mother could have been found guilty of something.

I don't remember enough of Nigel from the other book I read to know if he is changing.

Sandy wrote: "I also found the story riveting and really liked the use of the diary. I never guessed how the murderer was using the diary so was completely surprised by the ending. I so wished the victim's mothe..."

I too wished that old hag of a mother-in-law would have been punished for SOMETHING! She was so very unpleasant! And yes the use of the diary was great in putting us into Cairns' mindset and almost rooting for him to succeed. It was an enjoyable story.

Good to hear you both enjoyed it. Nigel is not one of those detectives who is central to the story, is he? Do you prefer the detective to be a main part of the plot - like Alleyn, Wimsey or Poirot, or do you think their being slightly on the periphery works well?

If anyone is keen to continue the series, I will happily read along!

Susan wrote: "Good to hear you both enjoyed it. Nigel is not one of those detectives who is central to the story, is he? Do you prefer the detective to be a main part of the plot - like Alleyn, Wimsey or Poirot,..."

Count me in for continuing the series, Susan! And either way - detective center to the plot or on the periphery - works for me as long as the story is engrossing. With Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver mysteries, she was not introduced to the plot sometimes until well after chapter 5, and I like the series.

Good to hear, S Dizzy. Plus, I agree - sometimes the detective appearing later works well. It did in the Marsh we read this month, where we learnt about the nursing home and all the characters in depth before Alleyn appeared.

I have added the next Nicholas Blake book to the buddy read list:

Updated list of Buddy Reads:

March/April: The Beast Must Die: Nicholas Blake
March/April: Black Orchids: Rex Stout
April/May: An Expert in Murder: Nicola Upson
May/June: Look to the Lady: Margery Allingham
June/July: The Smiler with the Knife: Nicholas Blake

Susan wrote: "I have added the next Nicholas Blake book to the buddy read list...

Yay! Thank you. I will definitely get The Smiler With the Knife before June. I am listening to the audiobook of Black Orchids. So far, I am enjoying the story. I mean, getting Wolfe out of the brownstone and in new surroundings, let alone another country is bound to be a great read.

Good to hear you are enjoying the buddy reads, S Dizzy :)

I've finished this now - a hard one to put down. I really liked it, although I thought the diary part was better than the more conventional part where Nigel turns up (even though I do like Nigel.)

I completely fell for one of the red herrings and was convinced Phil was the killer!

S Dizzy, the one where Wolfe goes to another country is The Black Mountain - a bit confusing as the title is similar to Black Orchids! Both great books anyway. :)

Judy wrote: "S Dizzy, the one where Wolfe goes to another country is The Black Mountain - a bit confusing as the title is similar to Black Orchids! Both great books anyway. :)"

Oh wow! How funny! Thanks for that clarification, Judy. It IS confusing. I guess I'll start Black Orchids after Black Mountain then. LOL!!!!! (Just read the synopsis of Black Orchids and see that in both stories, Wolfe indeed leaves his brownstone. Can't wait to read it then!)

Come on over to the Black Orchids thread for lots of Wolfe love, S Dizzy. :)

I was interested to see that Georgia is getting so worried about Nigel in this book - in the previous ones he has seemed a very lighthearted detective, with all his smoking, cups of tea, etc, but here the eccentricities seem to have died down and she is concerned he is heading for a breakdown - shades of Wimsey at the end of his cases? I hope this doesn't mean he will be suffering ill-health in the later books!

P.S., although Nigel isn't dropping his cigarette ash everywhere this time, I noticed that Georgia "always" has a case with 50 cigarettes in it, so she seems to be a heavy-duty smoker.

Judy wrote: "I was interested to see that Georgia is getting so worried about Nigel in this book - in the previous ones he has seemed a very lighthearted detective, with all his smoking, cups of tea, etc, but h..."

Judy, from Georgia's worry, I too thought of LPW's PTSD. At least it makes Nigel more human. Hopefully, Nigel won't suffer from it in the next books.

It is hard to say too much about the Nigel/Georgia relationship without giving spoilers. She does feature heavily in the next book, so you get to know her much better.

Did you warm to Felix? I didn't really - I felt for him over his agony for his son's death, but the way he uses Lena is horrible. Is he that much better than George?

Well, Lena was in the car and she didn't do anything to help. I can see why he used her and he did, at least, feel bad about it afterwards.

I don't particularly like Lena either, but I still don't like the calculating way he uses her.

No, but I suppose she was his only way to get to George. She was a good character too as she made him question himself.

I think Felix ended up using Lena a lot more than he intended and never expected for either of them to become involved. He needed her to identify the driver and originally blamed her as a passenger. He did seem to feel bad.

I have mixed feelings about Lena: she was carrying on with her sister's husband ... and they both showed poor taste in men.

I finished a couple of days ago but have been traveling and have not had the opportunity to gather my thoughts.

Well, I was fooled! I was pretty sure it was Phil, with Felix/Frank as an accessory after the fact, trying to mislead the police. Close but no cigar. I did twig that the diary was unreliable pretty early on, though.

Interesting the changes of style and tone from section to section.

If you are going to write such a diary, it is probably best not to do so while staying in the intended victims house...

As most of us have finished this now, what did we think of the ending? Again, we have a situation where a GA detective lets someone escape justice - or choose their own way to end their life, rather than being hung.

Susan wrote: "As most of us have finished this now, what did we think of the ending? Again we have a situation where a GA detective lets someone escape justice - or choose their own way to end their life, rather than being hung. ..."

I've been quite surprised, and sometimes dismayed, by how often this happens in the GA books - I suppose it indicates that the detective feels some sympathy for the culprit, but it's very kind of Nigel to do so here after he has had a bash over the head!

I think it's quite a satisfying ending in this book, as Frank/Felix has been pursuing his own course throughout.

Abigail wrote: "I finished a couple of days ago but have been traveling and have not had the opportunity to gather my thoughts.

Well, I was fooled! I was pretty sure it was Phil, with Felix/Frank as an accessory ..."

Me too, Abigail, I was sure it was Phil too. I agree the changes of style are interesting - I think I liked the diary part best, although it was nice to meet Nigel and Georgia again.

I was interested to read that Cecil Day-Lewis was one of a group of young writers who were known to Virginia Woolf. I wonder what she would have thought of him writing detective stories and whether the pseudonym was known to his friends, or he was totally under the radar? After all, authors were not expected to be so available as they are today.

Judy wrote: "Did you warm to Felix? I didn't really - I felt for him over his agony for his son's death, but the way he uses Lena is horrible. Is he that much better than George?"

I don't think I warmed to Felix, Judy. I thought I would since got to know him through his diary but no, I didn't truly like him. Like you, I empathized with him for losing his son. In some parts of the diary I felt that he wrote like a writer instead of like he was really expressing his emotions (does that make sense? maybe I am not expressing myself well) like he was writing for an audience, which we find that he was since he hoped the guy would find it. And Lena, in my opinion, seemed shallow.

I think you put it very well, S Dizzy - it did seem as though Felix was writing a novel, rather than a diary. I was unsure what the diary was really for - other than an interesting device for telling the story in a different way.

What did everyone think of Mrs Anderson and her anonymous letters and the destruction in the garden, at the beginning of the book? Obviously, Felix was destroyed by the death of Marty, but I thought it showed (along with his dislike of seeing his daily woman crying) how he was unable to share his grief. He literally was consumed by revenge.

Good question about Mrs Anderson! It was a little odd that she was there and just dropped, having no future role in the story. It was kind of interesting that a person contemplating murder would feel in a position to shame someone writing anonymous letters; maybe an early clue that Felix’s ethics were not to be relied on? Or else emphasizing his isolation—people judging him from a distance, not many people he could trust enough to confide in.

As for the business of letting the perpetrator get away, I feel it’s a holdover from the old honor code of gentlemen: if someone admitted that he committed a crime, then he had an obligation to destroy himself as atonement. Gentlemen seem to have trusted one another to take the honorable course (perhaps trusting a criminal’s honor just because he was a gentleman was so ridiculous that the tradition had to die out!).

I'd forgotten about Mrs Anderson, but yes, that was very puzzling - I think perhaps the reason is that it emphasises Felix's isolation, as you say, Abigail.

I wonder how often this honour code was ever relied on in real life? Not all that often, I suspect!

Yes, all of this taking the option which will lead to 'certain death,' doesn't seem that certain to me. After all, was he to be trusted?

I thought, at first, that the anonymous letters and the murder were linked somehow. There was something quite tragic about Mrs Anderson coming in to cut the heads off the flowers... It makes you realise how much people get out of quite small encounters somehow.

Also how people glom their own emotions onto other people’s tragedies. I always wonder about that when I see total strangers trying to attend the funerals of people whose deaths were reported in the news. Those deaths aren’t any worse than anyone else’s death, but somehow the news magnifies the event and total strangers feel it happened to them in some way. Mrs Anderson seems to have been jealous of Felix for having Martin, so when Martin was taken away she had to blame someone for “her” loss and Felix is the nearest person to hand. It’s as if Felix weren’t a person at all to her, only an obstacle to her own happiness.

One of the things that struck me about Martin’s death was that people still weren’t terribly used to motorcars. They would have been practically nonexistent when Felix was a little boy (and the ones that existed would have been very slow), so it would have been far less dangerous in his day for a child to walk to the store. They hadn’t yet fully adjusted their behaviors to the new reality.

I just purchased a used copy of in "very good/like new" condition. I am happy that it will arrive before we are scheduled to read it.

Susan, interesting question and thoughts about Mrs. Anderson. I too thought it was odd that she was only mentioned briefly in that powerful scene but no more in the book. I really would like to have gotten insight into her actions and mindset for doing what she did. Though, Abigail's comments are very enlightening in this regard. I simply do not like a red herring in a story simply for the sake of a red herring especially if it is never mentioned again, know what I mean?

Great cover - I love those pulpy, full colour covers :)

It was a powerful scene with Mrs Anderson, wasn't it? I think the author should have made more of it, but then, I suppose it was essential that Felix go in search of the killer.

What did everyone think of him actually moving in with the Ratterys?

Susan wrote: "Great cover - I love those pulpy, full colour covers :)...It was a powerful scene with Mrs Anderson, wasn't it? ...What did everyone think of him actually moving in with the Ratterys? .."

Me 2! I love those types of book covers. Susan, you would appreciate Edmond Crispin's Gervase Fen book covers. I bought the whole series in print form BECAUSE OF the covers! LOL!

When reading about Carins moving into Ratterys' abode, I thought "Wow! Go big or stay home! He is serious about killing this guy! so may as well be NEAR him to do it!" Too, I think it's interesting that Blake/Day-Lewis chose their family name as "Rattery" because they were definitely unpleasant people. LOL

Oh, I buy books because of covers too, don't worry - you are not alone!

Yes, Rattery was an unpleasant name for an unpleasant character...

Has anyone else finished this book now? If so, did you read either of the previous two? I just wonder, as this is generally regarded his 'greatest book.' While I like this, I don't think it is my favourite of his books.

Where do you think Nicholas Blake stands compared to other GA authors you have tried?

I've read this book now and it was my first from this series. I liked it - I imagine it gets the 'greatest book' accolade for the diary concept but the diary section went on a bit too long for me. It's well written and clever though, and I'd read more Nicholas Blake.

Good to hear that you enjoyed it, Pamela. Like a lot of GA detective books, you don't need to start at the beginning, but this is a bit different, as Nigel Strangeways comes into the novel so late.

I was intrigued by a Latin phrase which cropped up in this book, where Frank/Felix describes himself as "Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas."

Google told me this is a line from Virgil's Georgics and translates as:
"Fortunate who was able to know the causes of things."

I'm slightly wondering if the author chose the name Felix in order to use this line?

Susan wrote: "Where do you think Nicholas Blake stands compared to other GA authors you have tried?..."

From those I've read so far, I think he's up there with the best of them. I wonder if he might tend to be underrated as a crime writer because he is better-known as a poet?

I could imagine Day-Lewis choosing a name just to use that line, Judy!

I also think that 'Nicholas Blake,' is a great crime writer. I suspect that the real author was a little ashamed of writing for the money... He was a member of the Detection Club though.

This novel was published in 1938, which is heading away from WWI and towards WWII. For anyone who is going to read on with us, later, the next title, The Smiler With the Knife was published in 1939 and the following one Malice in Wonderland is one of my favourite and was published in 1940. There was another published in 1941, but then a gap until 1947,

During the war, he worked at the Ministry of Information and later published "Minute for Murder," based on those experiences, which was his 1947 work. I think George Orwell had a similar job; albeit producing propaganda for the BBC, which he based, "1984," on. I do intend to re-read the series, and I think the books published around WWII are very interesting, if less typically 'mysteries,' especially the next one. Still, I think books about WWII, written at the time, are fascinating, as you really get a sense of how things were.

Has anyone seen Claude Chabrol's film adaptation, 'Que la Bete Meure'?

It is one of Chabrol's very best films - equaled only by La Femme Infidele.