The Morning After Death

by Nicholas Blake

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY

Private detective and poet Nigel Strangeways is staying at Cabot University, an Ivy League university near Boston, while he undertakes some research. There he encounters the Ahlberg brothers - Chester, Assistant Senior Tutor in the Business School, Mark, who lectures in the English Faculty and their half-brother, Josiah, a professor of Classics. When one of the brothers is found murdered, the local police request Nigel's help in catching the killer, but little does Nigel know just how close he is to the murderer.

A Nigel Strangeways murder mystery - the perfect introduction to the most charming and erudite detective in Golden Age crime fiction.

• ISBN10: 0099565595
• ISBN13: 9780099565598
• Publish Date: 29 May 2012 (first published 1 December 1980)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Vintage
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 224
• Language: English

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally posted to my blog: Nonstop Reader.

The Morning After Death is the 16th (and final) novel in the Nigel Strangeways series by Nicholas Blake. Originally published in 1966, this reformat and re-release from Agora is 229 pages and available in ebook format (other editions available in other formats). It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. For Kindle Unlimited subscribers, this book (and many other Agora editions) are currently included in the KU subscription library to borrow and read for free.

I hadn't read the Strangeways series for many years until Agora reformatted and re-released them in electronic format and made them easy to find and access for a new generation of readers. The series was released from the 1930s to the 1960s and presents a capsule glimpse into social mores and culture of the time. This entry sees Strangeways visiting an old friend from Oxford at an Ivy League school near Boston (fictive Harvard) when a murder is uncovered and Nigel is dragged unwillingly into the fray to uncover a murderer and clear up a clever crime.

Nicholas Blake's amateur detective Strangeways stars in one of those classic civilized British series that I revisit again and again. I've reviewed a number of the books previously and they're always very entertaining. The situations are outlandish, the characters often caricatures, the dialogue is quippy, but despite all that, they're always fun to revisit. I'm honestly not sure if I had ever read this entry before, because I can't remember a Strangeways novel which wasn't set in Great Britain, but this one is a good addition with a cleverly plotted mystery, well written dialogue and finely rendered characters.

I would recommend this one to lovers of golden and silver age mysteries. There are some bits of dialogue and prose which do show their age, but all in all it's a well engineered and satisfying read. It works perfectly well as a standalone, they all do.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.