Blake, Nicholas -- The Whisper in the Gloom (1954) aka Catch and Kill

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My last Nicholas Blake—and, surprisingly and gratifyingly, it’s one of his best.  It’s certainly the best of his spy stories and thrillers (including The Smiler With the Knife, Malice in Wonderland, A Tangled Web, A Penknife in My Heart, and The Sad Variety).

This is famous as the book in which boys get accidentally involved in espionage and murder.  (His children’s novel, The Otterbury Incident, had appeared six years before; according to COC, this makes ‘the normal misbehaviour of schoolboys lead to the unmasking of a criminal gang’.)  Blake’s boys are convincingly and realistically drawn, without any false sentiment—the cockney barrow-boy Foxy is particularly good.  (The church sermon about a WWII pilot’s act of self-sacrifice is exactly what would appeal to a boy of that type.)  This is one of the best uses of child heroes in detective fiction, alongside Mitchell’s The Rising of the Moon and Innes’s The Journeying Boy.

It’s a detective thriller, a hybrid form which, unusually, succeeds for once in having the best of both worlds rather than falling between two stools.  We know who the villains are, but not what their game is, and there are thrillerish elements (a murderous attack on Nigel, the kidnapping of both Bert Hale and Foxy).  On the other hand, Nigel works closely with Inspector Wright (his first appearance), and there’s plenty of thinking and discussion.  The dying message (‘Bert Hale 12’) is inspired and credible.

This is (oddly, given that I read most of the later Strangeways nearly 11 years ago) the book that introduces Clare Massinger, Nigel’s mistress.  Nigel has known her for at least 4 years (although without telling her that he was a detective, so presumably he’s now independently wealthy or retired), and they seem to be lovers.

Full of invention, with several inspired comic touches (Foxy in church, Nigel disguising himself as a clown to burgle a suspect’s flat) and a splendid set-piece in the siege of Stourboys Hall.  The fertility does run out towards the end, when Blake borrows the Albert Hall scene from Hitchcock’s Man Who Knew Too Much (which also inspired Journeying Boy).

All in all, an excellent book, and a fine note to finish one of my very favourite writers.

• Clare Massinger’s model horses—Henrietta Savernake in The Hollow
• Blake does children very well, both as protagonists (Sad Variety) and victims (A Question of Proof, The Widow’s Cruise)

What made Blake so good?

Like Christie, Blake struck a balance between detection and characterisation.  As COC said (rightly for once!), ‘he never shirks clueing and thinking’.  He could be inspired with clues, both physical and psychological (as in The Widow’s Cruise), and some of his solutions (Thou Shell of Death) are brilliant.  Each of his books has its own tone.  He was adept at depicting small communities (Minute for Murder, End of Chapter), could make his characters ‘live’ (more than just suspects), and present complex emotional situations, including dilemmas for the detective.  His plots are character-driven, and never arbitrary—although, on occasion, the murderer is obvious.  His culprits are understandable and often sympathetic, while Nigel himself is one of the most likeable of sleuths.  He was also a superb writer (as was only to be expected from a Poet Laureate).  His style was crisp, clear, witty and inventive, without the occasional  self-consciousness of Innes or Sayers.  All in all, an intelligent, civilised and sympathetic detective novelist.

Nicholas Fuller.