Reading the Detectives discussion

Welcome to our buddy read of The Worm of Death the fourteenth in the Nigel Strangeways series, published in 1961.

Several days after private detective and poet Nigel Strangeways dines with Dr Piers Loudon and his family, the doctor vanishes, only for his legless corpse to be fished out of the river Thames. When his family ask Nigel to protect their interests during the police investigation, it soon becomes apparent that each member of the deceased's family, from his adopted son to his daughter's unpleasant fiancée, had a strong motive for killing him.

As the winter fog swirls outside, Nigel must find his way through a maze of conflicting stories, missing diaries and red herrings.

Please do not post spoilers in this thread. Thank you.

Thank you to Susan for setting up the threads for our new buddy reads - just opening them up as it's the weekend.

I'm about a third of the way through this one and it's definitely back to GA disfunctional families, with everyone having a motive! Not too sure what I think yet, but I'm pleased to see Clare returning.

Who else is reading this one?

I have finished this one. It was written in 1961 and I think you really get a sense of the 'Angry Young Man,' movement and of Nicholas Blake (Cecil Day-Lewis) being a little grumpy about it.

I do often like a series which portrays something of the society it appears in and I got a good sense of that here. Also, of changing social attitudes, with Nigel and Clare not being married - that is covered at the beginning of the novel when they go to dinner, so hope is not any kind of a spoiler.

I'm about half way in, agree it is more of its time than some of the other GA authors writing in the 60's. Evidently Nigel decided he could put up with Clare's sloppiness, or the housekeeper is their compromise.

Yes, he had said he couldn't live with her; I'd forgotten that, Sandy.

I'm still convinced he is pretty messy himself, after a mention in an earlier novel of him throwing cigarette ash all over someone's carpet!

And tipping tea everywhere :)

He seems to have switched to numerous cups of coffee, in this book - I've just come across a mention of him drinking 4 cups for breakfast.

Not a man who does things by halves, obviously. Plus, rationing is over and all that.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through now and quite caught up in it - sadly I will have to tear myself away to work today, but hope to finish this evening.

Good to hear you are enjoying it, Judy.

Starting this today, I agree with Susan that the glimpses of society (and Blake’s take on them) are part of the attraction of this series so looking forward to the grumpiness :)

Yes, there is a lot of grumpiness, Pamela :) I enjoy this series a lot too.

Do we know if Clare, like Strangeway's wife, was based on a real person?

Interesting question, Sandy. He married Jill Balcon in 1955, who was an actress, not a sculptor.

https://crimereads.com/nicholas-blake...

This is an interesting article about the novels, which suggests that Georgia was based on someone he knew at Oxford.

That’s a great article. I must admit I miss Georgia.

I am getting on with this, though Strangeways isn't a favourite of mine.

It reminded me of going to Greenwich with my mother, in the late 50s, for an appointment at St Alphege's Hospital. I assume it was an appointment for my mother, since I can't remember what it was about ... And visiting the Cutty Sark, and possibly the Greenwich Tunnel. I hadn't thought about it for decades!

Fantastic article - thank you for that, Susan.

Great article. I found it interesting that he started writing crime novels because he was 'in dire need of one hundred pounds to repair his family’s cottage roof in Cheltenham'.

Do you think writing a novel would spring to mind these days as a way of earning extra cash in a hurry? I suppose it would depend what line of work you were already in to a certain extent but I wouldn't think it would be easy to earn money quickly from writing books now. Blogging or Youtubing perhaps?

A lot of the crime writers of that time didn't see it as their main occupation did they.

Haha I think you are right there, Ruth - I don't think it would be an easy way for most people to make cash. I suppose he could be sure of being published, as I think he was already known as a poet?

Yes, it was as though poetry was the worthwhile way to gain a reputation, and a few, hastily written detective stories, were a vulgar way of actually making a profit from publishing :) I suppose, as I am currently reading Square Haunting: Five Women, Freedom and London Between the Wars all of the women included say writing as 'work' then. Virginia Woolf started with book reviews, so I suppose the comparison to blogging, or Youtubing, is not so far off. They were influencers in their way, and of their day.