Nigel Strangeways Books In Order

Publication Order of Nigel Strangeways Books

Nigel Strangeways is a classic British crime fiction book series by Nicholas Blake, who was born in Ireland in 1904. Nicholas Blake used to write only poetry before he decided to start writing this book series and other mystery books.

This book series features various murders which have its roots from the past critical events, with more depth of characterization and as you continue reading the more deep secrets, hidden relationships and more suspects are discovered.

Nigel Strangeways book series is very interesting to read, funny, entertaining and so captivating especially when it comes to those people who love mysteries and solving puzzles. The mysteries that are depicted in this series make it to be very gripping hence attracting readers.

The book series revolves around the main character Nigel Strangeways who is a brilliant amateur investigator and a detective who has access to information and influence.

The first book of Nigel Strangeways series is A Question of Proof and the series goes on up to 16, including Thou Shell Of Death, There’s Trouble Brewing and ending with The Morning After Death which is the last book in the Nigel Strangeways series.

A QUESTION OF PROOF.

This is the first book in the Nigel Strangeways series. The book simply starts when a boy who is the headmaster’s nephew is found dead on sports day inside a haystack at a boy’s public school, and right beside him is a silver mechanical pencil which belongs to one of the master. Therefore, the mystery begins here; did the master murder the boy? When exactly was the boy murdered? And what was the main motive?

The young master who goes by the name Michael Evans becomes the prime suspect in that crime, which raises even more questions like was the boy killed to prevent him from speaking out? Or did he see what he was not supposed to see? this even becomes even more interesting because his alibi is very tricky, because he was snogging with Hero Vale the headmaster’s wife coincidentally at the same haystack early before the murder took place. He therefore decides to call his charming intelligent friend Nigel Strangeways who is beginning his career as a private inquiry agent to help him out.

Nigel Strangeways is faced with a great challenge to make sure he figures out who the killer is before he strikes again in order to avoid presenting Michael’s alibi and preventing more deaths of innocent people.

As Strangeways continues to gather information and searching for proof that his friend Michael is not the killer, the headmaster is stabbed during a cricket match this even becomes harder for him because the main suspects that is, his friend Michael and the headmaster’s wife (his lover) are arrested but the most intriguing thing is that he finally knows who the killer is, but he has no proof this explains why the author chose the title A Question of Proof.

The characters are clearly drawn, the language used by the author Nicholas Blake is lovely and the story-line is very interesting, dramatic and surprising with a nice mystery, it makes the reader to keep on guessing as they continue to turn pages.

THOU SHELL OF DEATH.

This is the second book of the Nigel strangeways series which is considered by many as Nicholas Blake’s best crime novel. It starts when Nigel Strangeways is requested by his uncle who is the Assistant Commissioner of Police, to agree to attend a Christmas house party that is hosted by Fergus O’Brien who is a retired legendary World War 1 flying ace.

Fergus O’Brien has been receiving a series of anonymous letters threatening him and claiming that he will be murdered on the Boxing Day, so he invites Nigel Strangeways to help him out by acting as a criminal investigator, and he also invited a couple of guests who he suspects may be the letter writer including everyone who may benefit from his death.

Despite Nigel being present, death still strikes and Fergus O’Brien is found dead in his workroom early in the morning on the Boxing Day just as predicted in the letters. His death is staged to look like it is a suicide, he appears like he shot himself and only one set of footprints are found outside in the snow leading to his workroom. His death results to a lot confusion which makes Nigel to be faced with a complex case to solve. He is also forced to join the local police to convince them that it is not a suicide case and instead they should proceed to interview all the suspects in the party.

As time goes by the more mystery occur complicating things even more, people in the house start dying one by one, Nigel is forced to strive hard to go in deep depth to solve the mystery and save the innocent people.

Nigel decides to solve the case by starting off from the root cause; this is by taking a trip to Ireland to uncover facts about the past. This book reveals the authors poetic and academic laureate which makes it more fascinating to the readers, and those acquainted to Nicholas Blake’s books at some point they find themselves resorting to check on a certain word on the dictionary.

Nigel Strangeway’s character continues to evolve throughout the series with an intriguing setting. The story keeps building up throughout the book where you later on find Nigel falling deeply in love with one of the possible suspects. It takes nearly the entire last chapter of the book for Nigel to finally untangle all the twisted threads and solve the mystery which makes the conclusion to come as a surprise.

In conclusion, anyone who loves mysteries would enjoy Nigel Strangeways series. Nicholas Blake is a very creative author, the unlikelihood of something that is going to happen, and his ability to be able to outwit the reader is very clever of him and not every author would manage to pull it off very well as he does thus that makes it even more amazing and fun to read his books.