Mount TBR #21

I read this book for the Mount TBR 2018 Reading Challenge.

The Corpse in the Snowman – Nicholas Blake

Nicholas Blake is the pseudonym with which the illustrious English poet Cecil Day Lewis (among other things, the father of the actor Daniel, who played Lincoln and Chingachgook ) wrote a score of detective novels, perhaps for personal pleasure or probably for the steady source of income.

The fact is that, for whatever the reason they got written, his mystery novels are much appreciated by discerning readers who like a little heft with their whodunnits. That is, the readers of Michael Innes, John LeCarre, Dorothy B. Hughes, or Patricia Highsmith. Some argue that Blake’s best book is The Beast Must Die so you might want to start with the one reviewed here or A Question of Proof or The Dreadful Hollow or The Private Wound, on the assumption that the writer’s other novels will pale if you read the masterpiece first.

This novel is set in the dramatic winter of 1940-1941, the beginning of WWII. In the rural locale where the action takes place, the war is still a distant echo and daily life remains fairly ordinary if not for the unprecedented snowfall, and the gears of the familar world are grinding ominously.

The story begins when Nigel Strangeways, Blake’s series hero, is invited by a relative of his wife Georgia to investigate a case at the country mansion of the Restorick family, the quality of the place. The strange behavior of the family cat has necessitated the services of a detective. It seems the cat, during a séance, behaved in a way weird and unsettling even for a cat, attacking with ferocity something that was not there.

Strangeways is introduced into the Restorick mansion as a parapsychologist, but soon he is forced to resume his true identity as a private detective, after the beautiful, vain, shameless and deeply troubled Elizabeth Restorick, the younger sister of the host Hereward Restorick, is found hanged in her room, naked and pitiful. 

Strangeways wonders whether her apparent suicide is in fact premeditated murder. Teaming up with his usual sidekick Inspector Blount, he explores the possibilities with the suspects being a bland psychiatrist from London who has been treating Elizabeth, a novelist with a proletarian background and a jealous flighty friend. Blount is a real caution:

The inspector, when he arrived, was at his most genial. He smacked his lips over Nigel’s brandy, patted his bald head vigorously, warmed his ample bottom at the fire, and in general gave a lively representation of Father Christmas in mufti, which was, under the circumstances, a little sinister.

Vivid details to make us see, “Santa Claus in civvies,” a funny and menacing tap to end to the sentence – very good. Besides the British English and unusual words (e.g. fribble) that keep us on our toes, he has an interesting phrase or sentence about every other page, showing more control, imagination and style that we expect in a mystery.

Nigel Strangeways’ wife Georgia is an explorer, an unusual avocation for a woman in those days. They discuss the case in terms that Nick and Nora Charles would use if Nick and Nora Charles had had classical educations at Oxford. Another interesting character is Clarissa Cavendish, former don whose specialty was 18^th century England, who refers to the Georgian period as “my day.” Last but not least, we have among the characters two really nice and spontaneous children. The reader can tell that Day Lewis, both a parent and teacher, knew children and their ways.

Blake gazes at evil with an unblinking eye, putting this novel firmly out of the cozy category despite its remote country house, gothic atmosphere, landed gentry, bumbling constables, and bullish homicide detectives.