It's been a long week and I'm shattered, the Royal family may or may not bring in tourist pounds but I can promise you big state occasions make people spend, and spend, and spend some more. It also makes our logistics department lose the plot on stock allocations so there's been lot of wine to move about and not much time for anything else - even reading.
What time I have had has been devoted to Nicholas Blake who continues to delight me. 'There's Trouble Brewing' is set most appropriately in a brewery - an industrial setting that gives scope for some really inventive murder possibilities. The first body to be found; Truffles the owners dog, has come to an unfortunate end in a copper. The second body - or what's left of it - is found in the pressure incidentally ruining a whole days beer), but who would choose such an elaborate way of killing a man?
That's the first question that Nigel Strangeways has to answer and the key to the whole puzzle but there are a number of red herrings to be disposed of first. As in 'Thou Shell of Death' Blake misdirects suspicion from the culprit making them the one person it seems impossible could be the killer, it's a neat twist that sets up a fantastically tense finale.
As I've said before the Nicholas Blake books are great fun, all the more so for the clear enjoyment Cecil Day-Lewis obviously has in writing them. Close scrutiny would make you question the likelihood of some of the plot, but then again it would also reveal more jokes and some striking imagery (it must be the poet showing). I really enjoy these books, it's going to cost me a fortune.
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