I discovered my copy of The Worm of Death (Harper, 1961) by Nicholas Blake this week and of course had to re-read it. Nicholas Blake is the pseudonym of Cecil Day-Lewis (1904–1972), the UK Poet Laureate from 1968 until his death. While he was a distinguished academic and published several volumes of poetry and translations, he’s mostly remembered for his crime fiction, books he wrote under a pseudonym to generate income. His protagonist in 16 of his books is Nigel Strangeways, an upper-class Oxford-educated amateur investigator in the style of Lord Peter Wimsey or Albert Campion. He is the nephew of an Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard, giving him status with and access to official crime investigation and law enforcement groups. This series first began in 1935 and ended in 1966, with a hiatus during World War II. During World War II, Day-Lewis worked as a publications editor in the Ministry of Information for the UK and served in the British Home Guard. His experience in the Ministry informed Minute for Murder, the first Strangeways published after the war.
This 14th title in the series has Strangeways and his partner, sculptor Clare Massinger, moving into a house in Greenwich. They are invited to dinner to meet some of their new neighbors, Dr. Piers Loudron and his family. Rebecca, the only daughter, has become engaged to a man her father dislikes. The oldest son James followed his father into the practice of medicine but is overshadowed by his brilliant father. Harold runs a business of some sort and has married a beautiful woman with roving eyes. Graham, the youngest, was adopted by Dr. Loudron as a teenager and is openly the doctor’s favorite, to the resentment of the others.
Nigel and Clare are startled to learn a few days after their dinner at the Loudron household that Dr. Loudron has disappeared, leaving his house in the middle of the night during a classic London days-long dense fog. The diary that the doctor mentioned during their visit is also missing. The police are called in but no clue to the doctor’s whereabouts is found until about 10 days later when his body surfaces in the nearby river. Even though this book was released in 1961, it is classic Golden Age: The unconventional family with its secrets and open resentments, the detective who relies on talking to suspects and witnesses and identifying discrepancies and conflicts in their statements rather than physical evidence, the law enforcement colleague who provides forensic details, the atmospheric setting. The river and the people who live on and near it as well as the ships that frequent it are referenced often throughout and described in exquisite detail. The writing is beautiful and literate, an absolute pleasure to read, although the use of dashes in place of epithets definitely dates it. Highly recommended for anyone interested in classic detective fiction or in beautiful writing.