The Smiler with the Knife

Nicholas Blake

Jul 2017 · Ipso Books

About this ebook

A couple in the British countryside finds themselves fighting fascists in this suspenseful novel by “a master of detective fiction” (The Daily Telegraph).
 
In 1930s England, Nigel and Georgia Strangeways have settled into rural bliss, thinking their days of globe-trotting detective work are behind them—but little do they know a disturbing mystery is lurking in their own front yard. When a letter arrives commanding the couple to tend their hedges, the most menial of domestic duties propels the Strangeways out of their cozy life, and into the peril of a power-hungry plot.
 
With the help of Nigel’s uncle, Sir John Strangeways, they learn of a treasonous conspiracy bigger than their small town. To expose the sinister schemers, Georgia must risk her life and infiltrate a group of fascist sympathizers before they succeed in their plan to overthrow the government . . .
 
“Good adventure-intrigue, and well-written.” —Kirkus Reviews

About the author

Nicholas Blake was the pseudonym of Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, who was born in County Laois, Ireland, in 1904 and was raised in London after his mother’s death in 1906. He was educated at Sherborne School and Wadham College, Oxford, from which he graduated in 1927. Blake initially worked as a teacher to supplement his income from his poetry writing and he published his first Nigel Strangeways novel, A Question of Proof, in 1935. Blake went on to write a further nineteen crime novels, all but four of which featured Nigel Strangeways, as well as numerous poetry collections and translations.
 
During WWII, he worked as a publications editor in the Ministry of Information, which he used as the basis for the Ministry of Morale in Minute for Murder, and after the war he joined the publishers Chatto & Windus as an editor and director. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1968 and died in 1972 at the home of his friend, the writer Kingsley Amis.