The Smiler with the Knife by Nicholas Blake

The Smiler with the Knife by Nicholas Blake

Detective Nigel Strangeways, and his explorer wife Georgia have taken a cottage in the countryside. They are slowly beginning to adjust to a more relaxed way of life when Georgia finds a mysterious locket in their garden and unwittingly sets the couple on a collision course with a power-hungry movement aimed at overthrowing the government. It will take all of Nigel's brilliance and Georgia's bravery if they are to infiltrate the order and unmask the conspirators.

Nicholas Blake was the pseudonym of Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, who was born in County Laois, Ireland in 1904. After his mother died in 1906, he was brought up in London by his father, spending summer holidays with relatives in Wexford. 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 the Second World War 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.

Cecil Day-Lewis, the Poet Laureate, was born in County Laois, Ireland, in 1904. His pseudonym was NICHOLAS BLAKE. After his mother died in 1906, his father raised him in London, with summer vacations spent with family in Wexford. He attended Sherborne School and Wadham College, Oxford, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1927. Blake worked as a teacher to support his poetry writing income, and his first Nigel Strangeways novel, A Matter of Evidence, was published in 1935. Blake went on to create nineteen more crime novels, with Nigel Strangeways appearing in all but four of them, as well as numerous poetry collections and translations.

He worked as a publishing editor in the Ministry of Information during WWII, which he used as the inspiration for the Ministry of Morale in Minute for Murder, and then as an editor and director at Chatto & Windus following the war. In 1968, he was named Poet Laureate, and in 1972, he died at the home of his friend, the novelist Kingsley Amis.