The Beast Must Die

I am going to kill a man. I don't know his name. I don't know where he lives, I have no idea what he looks like. But I am going to find him and kill him. The Beast Must Die (1938) begins with this short paragraph, the first lines in a diary. Through the eyes and mind of a killer, the reader searches for a victim and evolves a carefully designed plan for murder. But like most human activities, murder can go awry. This well-crafted, fascinating plot offers unexpected twists and a satisfying conclusion. The Beast Must Die is among the best Nigel Strangeways mysteries. Early on the story transitions from a diary format to a more conventional narrative form. The execution of the murder plan moves forward at a deliberate pace, with full attention to every detail. The Beast Must Die is one of the few stories in which Nigel's remarkable wife, Georgia, one of the three most famous women explorers of her day, joins him in the investigation. Not unexpectedly, his long term friend Inspector Blount of Scotland Yard is assigned to the case. A poet-detective may not seem entirely credible. However, for readers new to the Nigel Strangeways mysteries, it might help to note that the author, Nicholas Blake, was actually a pseudonym for Cecil Day-Lewis, Poet Laureate from 1968 until his death in 1972. The actor Daniel Day-Lewis is his son. Although the Nicholas Blake stories are apparently no longer in print, used copies are not that uncommon. In the 1970s and 1980s the Strangeways mysteries were reprinted as Perennial Library paperbacks by Harper and Row Publishers. Another source, The Nicholas Blake Treasury, is an inexpensive, book club edition published in four volumes by the Mystery Guild. Finding even a single volume is a delight as each volume contains three Strangeways mysteries. The Beast Must Die was also published around 1990 by the Franklin Mystery Library in an attractive, gilt edge, hardcover binding. This particular edition is not easy to find, however. Thou Shell of Death (1936) and The Corpse in the Snowman (1941) are two other excellent Nigel Strangeways stories dating from the same period as The Beast Must Die.

I just read a copy of this 30s thriller and I was deeply impressed at how much more elegant and mature it is than most examples of the genre. It concerns a man whose son is killed in a hit and run, and he decides to find and murder the person responsible. The first half of the book, his discovery of the driver and plot to murder him, is superb. It reminds me of Patricia Highsmith, with its ambiguity of motive and its difficulty of determining guilt. The second half becomes more conventional, as a detective tries to sort out what happened and so on, but even that is good writing, except for the ending. If you're in a hurry, just read Parts 1 and 2 and pretend it's an exercise in open-ended thrillers.

The "Nigel Strangeways" books are a classic series of detective thrillers written under the "Nicholas Blake" pseudonym of Cecil Day-Lewis. "The Beast Must Die" is typical of the series, the 1938 melodramic tale of a man who decides to murder the hit-and-run killer of his only son. When someone else commits the evil deed first, Strangeways is called in to sort out the resulting mess.Taken on one level, The Beast Must Die is an entertaining, if rather over-written, crime thriller. At another level, it's a much more entertaining spoof of the kind of mannered stories about the British middle class between the wars that were popular at the time. The book's opening sentence has become a classic: "I am going to kill a man... I have no idea what he looks like. But I am going to find him and kill him."The title is taken from the Book of Ecclesiastes: The beast must die, the man dieth also, yea both must die.