Reading the Detectives discussion

Welcome the 16th, and last, in the Nigel Strangeways series, first published in 1966.

Private detective and poet Nigel Strangeways is staying at Cabot University, an Ivy League university near Boston, while he undertakes some research. There he encounters the Ahlberg brothers - Chester, Assistant Senior Tutor in the Business School, Mark, who lectures in the English Faculty and their half-brother, Josiah, a professor of Classics.

When one of the brothers is found murdered, the local police request Nigel's help in catching the killer, but little does Nigel know just how close he is to the murderer.

Nicholas Blake was the pseudonym of Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, who was born in County Laois, Ireland in 1904. After his mother died in 1906, he was brought up in London by his father, spending summer holidays with relatives in Wexford. He was educated at Sherborne School and Wadham College, Oxford, from which he graduated in 1927. Blake initially worked as a teacher to supplement his income from his poetry writing and he published his first Nigel Strangeways novel, A Question of Proof, in 1935.

Blake went on to write a further nineteen crime novels, all but four of which featured Nigel Strangeways, as well as numerous poetry collections and translations. During the Second World War he worked as a publications editor in the Ministry of Information, which he used as the basis for the Ministry of Morale in Minute for Murder, and after the war he joined the publishers Chatto & Windus as an editor and director. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1968 and died in 1972 at the home of his friend, the writer Kingsley Amis.

We do intend to cover the non-series books by Nicholas Blake as future buddy reads:

A Tangled Web (1956)
aka Death and Daisy Bland
A Penknife in My Heart (1958)
The Deadly Joker (1963)
The Private Wound (1968)

Interested to hear everyone's thoughts on this, last in the series, and on the series in general.

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

Another series we are finishing this month. Again, quite sad we have come to the end. Interested to hear what we thought and favourites in the series overall.

I haven't started this yet, but hope to very soon, once I finish the Caroline Graham.

Looking forward to getting back to Nigel Strangeways again! I agree, Susan, I'm also quite sad to finish the series.

Who else is reading this one?

I’ll definitely be reading this, but towards the end of the month. I’m sad to see the end of Strangeways too, I probably wouldn’t have found him without this group and he’s become a real favourite.

That's good to hear, Pamela!

I will put this on my list. Currently reading Punshon's Death of A Beauty Queen to anticipate that discussion. Thanks for the opportunity to revisit both authors!

I know what you mean, Jason. Sometimes I need the prompting of a group read. It's the only way I ever finish a series :)

I will be starting this fairly soon. Oddly, the only way I could get it easily and cheaply was through Audible. Neither of my library systems had a copy.

I've downloaded this on Kindle now, and have started, but am not very far in as yet.

Thinking about favourites in the series, I will have to go back and look at my reviews, but ones which really stood out for me were:

Malice in Wonderland
Minute for Murder
End of Chapter

I guess The Beast Must Die is the 'classic,' of the series and I do like it, but I think the above three titles were my personal faves. How about everyone else?

Sandy wrote: "I will be starting this fairly soon. Oddly, the only way I could get it easily and cheaply was through Audible. Neither of my library systems had a copy."

(In a capricious, scraping voice:) Oh, Sandy! You have selected... an audiobook... read by the in-imitable... Chris Dyer. There is quite the...? conversation... about the delivery...? of this narrator. Odd inflections and... strange pauses... that infuriate some!

Me? I've listened to my share of the Dyer chronicles -- maybe a half dozen of the Strangeways stories -- and he is not too dire for me. I've grown accustomed to his odd rhythms. But others on the 'Net are not so forgiving. Let me know what you think!

Susan wrote: "Thinking about favourites in the series, I will have to go back and look at my reviews, but ones which really stood out for me were:

Malice in Wonderland
Minute for Murder
End of Chapter"

I wish I could comment, Susan, but I'm at a disadvantage because some titles I have read recently (in the last few years) while others I haven't revisited in nearly 20 years! But even at that distance, I remember being very impressed with

Minute for Murder (kaleidoscopic mystery, from six suspects to three to two to the culprit, if memory serves)
The Smiler with the Knife (his best thriller)
And yes, I do enjoy the novelty and sadness of The Beast Must Die.

Honorable mentions to There's Trouble Brewing and End of Chapter, which I enjoyed more than I expected when I revisited them.

Jason, I completely agree with you about the audio books! I only listened to part of one and I couldn't bear the narrator either. Absolutely bizarre - monotone and with constant, misplaced pauses. Such a shame too, as this is one of my favourite series and I would have liked them on audible, as well as kindle...

I didn't mind Kris Dyer too much, as I do know one or two people with similar speaking styles, but I prefer to read the books on Kindle.

Still, he is an odd choice. The best you can say is you don't mind him too much and all the reviews comment on the constant pauses. You would imagine it would be obvious to those at Audible that he is not an ideal choice for reading aloud...

Yep, there are plenty of better readers they could have gone for, I do agree.

I've read about 20% of this and am so far enjoying it much more than The Sad Variety. I think the academic mystery atmosphere feels much more natural for Blake/Strangeways than the Cold War thriller setting for the previous book.

Just sorry to see that Clare hasn't travelled to the US with Nigel - I do hope Blake will find some way to bring her in before the end of the book!

About halfway through now and really enjoying it - hoping I continue to, as it would be nice to finish this series with a really good mystery for Nigel.

I've just had a look back through and I think my favourites were some of the earlier books, Thou Shell of Death, There's Trouble Brewing, Malice in Wonderland and The Case of the Abominable Snowman are some which I remember really enjoying.

I agree, Judy, that Nigel Strangeways (and Blake) is back in his element on a college campus after the espionage and menace that was in The Sad Variety.

As for the audiobook narrator, certainly many others would have read the series better than Dyer! I wonder if the company let him do the whole series because it liked the idiosyncratic narration for an idiosyncratic detective. And there's a weird breathy rumble he gives all of Nigel's dialogue that I never heard in my head, but now after multiple stories, I have come to accept it. (Perhaps better to say I have surrendered to it.)

I hope Clare gets a cameo or mention in this one too!

I've finished the book now and enjoyed it - with one or two reservations which I will get into over in the spoiler thread!

There is always a lot about poetry and literature in the Nigel Strangeways books, and in this book Nigel visits some famous literary locations, including Amherst, where he sees the home of Emily Dickinson - I was slightly surprised to see that it wasn't a museum yet when this was written, in 1966, but I think many authors' homes have only become museums in recent decades.

He also goes to Concord, where he looks at the homes of Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott and Ralph Waldo Emerson but again doesn't go inside any of them. Anyway, I felt quite jealous of Nigel when reading these sections!

The title, The Morning After Death, is taken from an Emily Dickinson poem, The Bustle in a House - I think there's also a possible pun by Nicholas Blake in this choice of title though, as there is a fair amount of heavy drinking and hangovers involved in this book.

Anyway, this is a link to the Dickinson poem - the first few lines are quoted at the start of the book, but not the whole poem.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem...

I've started this now and this is my first visit to the thread since my original post. I see what everyone means about the narrator, but I've adjusted to his style fairly well. However, I do not agree with the voice he chose for Nigel and am perpetually surprised when Nigel speaks.

One of the reasons I thought it odd that the book was not more available here is that it takes place in my home area. While Concord is a short drive I have never been to any of the literary homes, though I've been to the historical sites and the natural area. And only went to Amherst for a wedding. I've been shamed.

I think that's so often the way, Sandy - if we are visiting somewhere in another area we take care to visit all the sights. But if we are close to home we know we can go to museums etc any time - or it did seem like that until this year, anyway!

Very true. I've probably visited about 10% of the touristy places in London, if that.