- Paperback: 159 pages
- Publisher: Rue Morgue Press (15 Oct 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1601870256
- ISBN-13: 978-1601870254
- Product Dimensions: 22.1 x 15 x 1.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 393,820 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Although I do have a battered copy of this book, I happily brought this lovely edition - thank you Rue Morgue for all the wonderful books you are re-releasing. This is the first Nigel Strangeways mystery by the late English Poet Laureate Nicholas Blake (Cecil Day-Lewis). Set in a 1935 prep school, this is a very interesting book. When the Headmaster's obnoxious nephew is killed Nigel's friend, a teacher at the school, is suspected of the murder. Cecil Day-Lewis worked in a prep school and this shows in his attention to detail and intimacy with the staff room. This is a very good book and shows a slice of life in 1930's England which is now gone (although minor prep schools are not of course!), as well as being a wonderful mystery.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A very good, entertaining and grown-up crime story from the Golden Age. Plough through the rather slow first 70-odd pages until Nigel Strangeways arrives and he will carry you effortlessly through the rest of the book.
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
The First Nigel Strangeways Mystery - Begin at the Beginning?
5 Sep 2007
Format:Paperback
A Question of Proof (1935) is the first of fifteen Strangeways stories written by Nicholas Blake over a period of nearly thirty years. Common sense might suggest that the best way to read a series is to begin at the beginning. Nonetheless, although A Question of Proof is interesting in that we meet the young Nigel Strangeways, many of his best stories come later.
A Question of Proof is not unlike other mysteries from the 1930s in that the setting (in this case, Sudeley preparatory school) is populated by an abundance of suspects. Algernon Wyvern-Wemyss, a most unpopular student, is found strangled. A young instructor, Michael Evans, is on the list of suspects for this heinous crime. Nigel Strangeways is asked to investigate the murder on behalf of the school, a task made more difficult as Evans and Strangeways were good friends during their school years at Oxford.
Strangeways had been having difficulty making ends meet as a poet, and had settled upon a career as a private investigator. Strangeways said it was the only career left which offered scope to good manners and scientific curiosity, and even paid, on occasion, quite handsomely. It helped somewhat that his uncle was a commissioner with Scotland Yard.
A poet-detective might at first seem a bit much, but interestingly, Nicholas Blake was actually a pseudonym for Cecil Day-Lewis, himself a poet and professor of English. In 1968 Day-Lewis was selected to be poet laureate. His son is the actor Daniel Day-Lewis.
Even in this first story Strangeways' approach to deduction was already in place: physical evidence is less important than astute psychological observations of the suspects. Critical clues are often revealed in oblique comments and nuanced conversations. Nonetheless, I found this particular solution to be overly dependent on clever psychological reasoning. Perhaps I was disappointed that my prime suspect proved innocent, and in fact was even murdered himself.
For those reading the Strangeway's mysteries in sequence, Blake's next novel, Thou Shell of Death (1936), is patterned on The Revenger's Tragedy, a lesser known Elizabethan play of uncertain authorship. Despite this literary framework, this second story has a rather eccentric cast including a legendary WWI flying ace and an intrepid African explorer (female in gender).
A Question of Proof is not unlike other mysteries from the 1930s in that the setting (in this case, Sudeley preparatory school) is populated by an abundance of suspects. Algernon Wyvern-Wemyss, a most unpopular student, is found strangled. A young instructor, Michael Evans, is on the list of suspects for this heinous crime. Nigel Strangeways is asked to investigate the murder on behalf of the school, a task made more difficult as Evans and Strangeways were good friends during their school years at Oxford.
Strangeways had been having difficulty making ends meet as a poet, and had settled upon a career as a private investigator. Strangeways said it was the only career left which offered scope to good manners and scientific curiosity, and even paid, on occasion, quite handsomely. It helped somewhat that his uncle was a commissioner with Scotland Yard.
A poet-detective might at first seem a bit much, but interestingly, Nicholas Blake was actually a pseudonym for Cecil Day-Lewis, himself a poet and professor of English. In 1968 Day-Lewis was selected to be poet laureate. His son is the actor Daniel Day-Lewis.
Even in this first story Strangeways' approach to deduction was already in place: physical evidence is less important than astute psychological observations of the suspects. Critical clues are often revealed in oblique comments and nuanced conversations. Nonetheless, I found this particular solution to be overly dependent on clever psychological reasoning. Perhaps I was disappointed that my prime suspect proved innocent, and in fact was even murdered himself.
For those reading the Strangeway's mysteries in sequence, Blake's next novel, Thou Shell of Death (1936), is patterned on The Revenger's Tragedy, a lesser known Elizabethan play of uncertain authorship. Despite this literary framework, this second story has a rather eccentric cast including a legendary WWI flying ace and an intrepid African explorer (female in gender).
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