Minute for Murder - Nicholas Blake
The setting of this 1947 mystery was probably inspired by Cecil Day-Lewis’ wartime experience working in the offices of the Ministry of Information, which Orwell satirized in his novel 1984. Series detective Nigel Strangeways is working at the Ministry of Morale in the Visual Propaganda Division.
Despite his name, Nigel Strangeways is not a collection of quirks and mannerisms a la Nero Wolfe. He’s an ordinary guy, at least as ordinary as a guy with literary leanings can be. Transferred from Intelligence in the last days of the conflict, he is happy to greet a friend who is returning from Germany. The friend has an odd war souvenir, a poison capsule. After showing it off around the office, a hottie blonde secretary collapses and expires. Nobody can find the capsule of death.
Seven persons of interest have a variety of motives. Strangeways cuts through the psychology and motives to identify the perp. Well worth reading.
The author captures the tensions among different grades of staff and the problems of supervising talented and brilliant but temperamental people. The characterization and red herrings combine to make this longer than the typical whodunnit, but the psychology is so convincing and the plotting so inventive that we hardcore readers don’t mind. Not too much, though a page count greater than 250 rather taxes my patience with a mystery.
Others by the Same Author: Click
on the title to go to the review
- A Question of Proof (1935)
- The Beast Must Die (1938)
- The Smiler with the Knife (1939)
- The Corpse in the Snowman (1941)
- Minute for Murder (1947)
- The Dreadful Hollow (1953)
- Whisper in the Gloom (1957)
- The Widow’s Cruise (1959)
- The Worm of Death (1961)
- The Private Wound (1968)
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