Wednesday, September 23, 2020

The Beast Must Die: Nicholas Blake

The story begins with these lines from Frank Cairnes' journal, in which he plans the death of the person who killed his son. 

I am going to kill a man. I don’t know his name, I don’t know where he lives, I have no idea what he looks like. But I am going to find him and kill him…

Cairnes is a writer of detective fiction, a widower, and cannot accept that his only son is dead and the hit-and-run driver has never been found. He describes his journey towards discovering who the killer is and how he gets close enough to the killer to follow up on his plan.

Cairnes meets his quarry, George Rattery, and his family, and the reader realizes that George is truly an awful man, one that might be worth killing. In fact there is a discussion of that topic at (Can it be valid to kill a man who is toxic to everyone around him?) at dinner one night. Cairnes' plan does not succeed, but George Rattery is killed, the diary is discovered, and Nigel Strangeways is hired to prove that Cairnes is not the killer.

As I read the book, I thought of many ways it could end and who could be the culprit. The way it did end was one of my many solutions but certainly low on the list. So the author successfully fooled me throughout the book.

I resisted reading this book for years, even though it is widely acknowledged as a crime classic. The reasons? The opening lines convinced me it would be a book about a dark, obsessed man... and I wasn't looking for that. I also did not see how it fit into the Nigel Strangeways series. The story is pretty dark, with the themes of revenge, obsession, and dysfunctional family dynamics. But a good read, nevertheless, and I am glad I finally did read it.

The Pan Classic Crime edition that I read has a brief introduction by P.D. James. The front matter in that edition includes this information about the author:

Nicholas Blake is the pseudonym for C. Day Lewis CBE, who was Poet Laureate [in the UK] from 1968 until his death in 1972, aged sixty-eight.

C. Day Lewis had an illustrious career both as an academic and as a literary figure, producing many collections of poetry, critical works, translations and novels under his own name.

However, for his twenty detective novels, and his crime short stories, he adopted the pen name of Blake. His central character in most of the novels was the cultivated amateur sleuth Nigel Strangeways, who appears in The Beast Must Die. Julian Symons described Strangeways as 'a real innovation, a genuine literary detective' and there is certainly a strong literary tone to the novels.

C. Day Lewis married his second wife, the actress Jill Balcon, in 1951. He had four children, one of whom is the actor Daniel Day Lewis.




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Publisher:  Pan Books, 1999 (original publisher Collins, 1938)
Length:    260 pages
Format:   Paperback
Series:    Nigel Strangeways
Setting:   England
Genre:     Mystery
Source:   On my TBR pile since 2013.

20 comments:

pattinase (abbott) said...

And he was the father of my favorite actor-not the least of his achievements. I think I read almost all of this series and I remember them on the shelf. But I must have donated them on one of our later moves. I can remember the covers so clearly.

Neeru said...

Thanks for the link, Tracy. I had problems with this book but would like to read more of Blake.

Margot Kinberg said...

I agree, Tracy, that this is a dark book about some very dysfunctional people. Still, I thought it was an interesting read, and Blake did some creative things with the plot. I'm glad I read it, too.

Kate said...

Thank you for the mention. Glad you enjoyed this one - structurally and thematically I think it is one of Blake's most creative and innovative.

TracyK said...

Patti, I don't think I have read all of the Nigel Strangeways series, maybe about half of them and most I don't remember. But I plan to make up for that.

TracyK said...

Neeru, I read your review after I finished the book. I think you made some good points, especially about Lena's part in it all. I had similar thoughts while reading the book but they did not detract from my enjoyment overall.

TracyK said...

Margot, even after I avoid a book for years, I usually decide that reading it was beneficial. I liked the differences between this book and the other books in the Strangeways series, but I wouldn't want to read a steady diet of this darker type of book.

TracyK said...

Kate, I agree this is one of Blake's better books, compared to the ones I have read recently. Definitely a good read, and it kept me guessing, which I like. I was glad to get past the journal portion, though.

Aidan @ MysteriesAhoy! said...

I enjoyed this one a lot too. It is a clever idea and, like you, I thought the whodunnit angle was clever.

TracyK said...

Aidan, this was a very clever book and so different from the other books in the Nigel Strangeways series, I think. I have only read one book from that series that occurs later than this book (Minute for Murder, #8 in the series) and liked it a lot. It is a mystery in an office setting. I want to find more for comparison.

Kate said...

I would say the first 5 or so are Blake's more creative efforts. His later books are much more formulaic and less inventive.

TracyK said...

Kate, I have read #1, #2, #4, and #8 since I started blogging. I did like Minute for Murder, partly because of the setting and period, so I suspect I will enjoy some of the later ones too. I don't have copies of #3 or #5, so I will have to do something about that. I do have some later books.

Cath said...

Well, I didn't know Cecil Day-Lewis wrote crime books as Nicholas Blake. Well, well! Sounds very good too, I will keep an eye out for it.

TracyK said...

Cath, it is definitely a different type of mystery, and does a very good job of mystifying the reader. The other books in the series are closer to the standard format, and I have enjoyed the ones I have read.

Rick Robinson said...

I have read just two Strangeways books, one of them about a body in a snowman, I think, and enjoyed them and didn't consider them dark at all. Needless to say this is not one of them.

Very windy, dark and rainy here today, good reading weather!

TracyK said...

Sounds like great weather, Rick, if you can stay in and read. (Although I don't like wind.)

I think most of Blake's novels are lighter than this one, which is probably why I put this one off so long.

KatiesCottageBooks said...

Wow! Great review! This one is going on my TBR list. 🙂

col2910 said...

I've heaard of the book, who hasn't but never been tempted until now. Maybe I'll cross paths with a copy. Great review, Tracy.

TracyK said...

Thanks, Katie. I am sorry to wait so long to respond. I hope you enjoy The Beast Must Die when you get to it.

TracyK said...

Thanks, Col. I enjoyed this book more than I expected, which is always a good surprise.