The Beast Must Die

'The Beast Must Die' has one of the best opening paragraphs to a murder mystery that I've ever read:

'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 …'

It's a clever, surprising and original start to a clever, surprising and original novel.

The man writing the entry that open what is his 'murder diary' is Frank Cairnes. Frank is seeking to revenge the hit-and-run death of his young son on the man who was driving the car, the man that hit his son on a quiet road in a small village and left him to die.

Frank is a comfortably off widower, who took up writing detective stories to relieve the boredom of his early retirement, turned show more out to be quite good at it and now earns a living from it. Like the author of 'The Beast Must Die', our hero writes under non de plume and refuses to allow his real identity to be revealed. He determines to use his detective novel writing skills and the mask of his nom de plume to find the killer and kill him in a way that makes the death look accidental.

The first forty per cent of the book is in the form of Frank's murder diary, in which he explains how he found the driver's identity, how he got close to him and how he intends to kill him. It's cold-blooded, credibly, gripping stuff.

In the second part of the book, the perspective changes and we see Frank from a distance, attempting to carry out his plan. By this point, it's fascinating to see him as others see him. He seems suddenly smaller, more vulnerable and less threatening. Then we get the first surprise when things don't go as our hero planned. This is beautifully done and left me wondering what on earth could happen next.

I should have seen it coming of course, as this is a murder novel with Nigel Strangeways in it, but a murder happens next, one that throws the whole story on its head again.

Finally, we get to see Nigel Strangeways at work, tugging at facts and impressions, getting to know the people, theorising with his wife who he's brought along ostensibly because she's more approachable than him but I think, rather charmingly, she's really there because he wants to be at her side. The who-did-it-and-how? investigation that follows is well done, giving new perspectives on characters that we've previously only seen through Frank's eyes in his diary and providing some intriguing suspects and a web of alibis.

The ending is another surprise. One of those forehead-slapping of-course-it-is surprises that I enjoy kicking myself for not having seen.

All in all, it was a very entertaining read and a great example of a Golden Age mystery. Although this was written in 1938, it felt fresh and modern. It also works as a standalone novel.

I strongly advise avoiding the audiobook version of this novel. The narrator, Kris Dyer, who sadly is the narrator for the entire series, delivers a terrible performance. He takes muscular prose and turns it into a limp-wristed luvvy-fest filled with inappropriate pauses and stresses that ignore the texture of the text and mutilate its rhythm. I sent my audiobook back. show less

The Beast Must Die is the 4th Nigel Strangeways detective novel. It was originally published in 1938, written by Nicholas Blake which was the pen name of Cecil Day Lewis. The book starts out with detective novelist Frank Cairnes planning to murder the runaway motorist who killed his small son Martin.

Once Frank works out that the guilty party is George Rattery. He goes under-cover using his pen name of Felix Lane, but before he can murder the culprit, he is found out and threatened with exposure if anything happens to George. George has possession of his diary where he wrote out his plans. The dust has barely settled when George is killed and Nigel Strangeways steps in to prove that Frank Cairnes is innocent.

This was a fun read as the show more murder victim was an arrogant braggart who bullied his family and others. The Beast Must Die is a clever, original story whose twists only enhance the read. show less

I wanted to read this after seeing the movie version, La Bestia Debe Morir, made in Argentina in 1952. I don’t usually read mysteries, but this one had so many twists and turns and the movie had such a noirish mood, I decided to go for it.

It’s very clever, like good mystery stories, with lots of twists and turns and some interesting story-telling aspects.

The first part of the book is a diary, written by the protagonist, Frank Cairnes. Cairnes is himself a mystery writer, writing under the name Felix Lane, and he writes the diary under that pen name. Cairnes’ son has been killed by a hit and run driver. The police have failed to find and prosecute the driver, so Cairnes, qualified as a mystery writer, takes the job on himself. He show more also, in the diary, plots his revenge, the murder of the driver.

Part Two of the book is a more conventional narrative, taking us through the apparent failure of Cairnes’ plan. He has identified the driver as George Rattery, an unlikable and unliked man — abuser of his own son and wife, although worshipped by his aged mother. Cairnes, again under the pseudonym Felix Lane, penetrates Rattery’s life, using a relationship he develops with Lena Lawson, an actress who, it turns out, has had an affair with Rattery.

In Cairne’s diary, he plotted to take Rattery out on a dinghy near Rattery’s house, and maneuver his drowning to look like an accident. Rattery sees through the plot and refuses to cooperate, exposing that he has discovered Cairne’s incriminating diary and set in place Cairne’s prosecution should he carry out the murder.

As it turns out, Rattery dies within days anyway, of either a suicidal poisoning or a murder by an unknown perp.

Part Three introduces us to detective Nigel Strangeways. Cairnes, as the most obvious suspect in the poisoning of Rattery, has hired Strangeways to clear him in the police investigation of the crime. Part Three is Strangeways’ story, taking over the narrative from Part Two.

Strangeways really becomes the protagonist in this last part of the story. He takes on the case, in the interest of protecting Cairnes, working with and sometimes conflicting with police Inspector Blount. It’s Strangeways who leads us through a maze of clues, leads, false leads, and curiosities in the case. And it’s Strangeways who unravels the whole thing.

I’ll drop the narrative there to avoid spoilers.

This is an “entertainment” in Graham Greene’s categories of stories. There’s little literary pretension outside of that succession of storytelling perspectives. It’s the cleverness of the plot, and of Strangeways’ detective work that carry the story and make it entertaining.

And I did enjoy reading it, so I’ll recommend it as an entertaining read.

A little more fun — the author, Nicholas Blake, wrote this as a detective story about a detective story writer. The character, Frank Cairnes, writes under a pen name, Felix Lane. Nicholas Blake, in turn, is the author’s own pen name, for his real name, Cecil Day Lewis (father of actor Daniel Day Lewis). Mirrors everywhere!

And the critical character Lena Lawson’s initial’s, “LL,” are the same as so many of the critical characters in Superman’s comic book life — Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Lex Luthor, . . . !

Okay I jumped the shark with that last one. My bad. show less

I read an out-of-print edition of this book and was amazed at how good it was. It's a genre mystery set (and written) in 1938 England. Part of the Nigel Strangeways mystery series, this was written by Cecil Day-Lewis under the pen name Nicholas Blake. Day-Lewis was a poet laureate of England and the father of Daniel Day-Lewis. The Beast Must Die (which, as a title, makes sense when you get to the end--it's from a bible passage--but otherwise makes you think the book is something else) concerns a distraught father whose young son is killed in a hit-and-run accident. The father (a writer of mysteries under a pseudonym) is obsessed with trying to discover the identity of the hit-and-run and driver and exact revenge. The first half of the show more book is his diary, and the second half is written in the third person and unravels the mystery of what really happened in the diary. Great book, but sadly out of print in the U.S. I'm going to look for the other Nigel Strangeways mysteries. show less

This book opens with a twist - the narrator confesses to be planning a murder. The reader soon learns that the narrator is Frank Cairnes, also known as writer Felix Lane, and the man he is planning to murder is the hit and run killer of his only son, Martie. Cairnes doesn't know who the man is yet, but he makes some pretty accurate deductions and soon has his victim in his sights.

You might think with a beginning like that, the rest of the book would be rather anticlimactic, but it's not. The first part is written in as a diary that Cairnes keeps, but the rest of the book is sort of catching up to what really happened. It seems that the reckless driver, George Rattery, was indeed murdered, but did Cairnes do it or did someone else beat show more him to the job? Nigel Strangeways comes in to investigate and finds plenty of motives for murdering Rattery, but the evidence is inconclusive about the identity of the murderer.

This was a good solid mystery that I really enjoyed. I liked the beginning and had fun following along and trying to guess, Did he really do it? (I guessed wrong, but I don't think that will help you!) show less

The Beast Must Die (1938) by Nicholas Blake. This is a novel or revenge gone awry. When his young son is killed by a hit and run driver, Felix Lane knows he must avenge the boy. But no one saw the car or the driver and the police are at a loss. He sets out on his own. This businessman turned mystery writer thinks through the logic of the situation, narrowing down the suspects from all people who drive in England to a very select few.
But it is a turn of luck when splashing though one of many deep, water filled ruts which make up a great portion of the country roads that he gets his break. He follows up which leads him to the movie industry and a beautiful young woman.
Te first portion of the story is a diary written by Lane. He details show more the search, the clues and the thread that leads him to the driver. And it outlines the steps he took to get near the murderer. It ends at the point where he it set to destroy the monster that killed his son.
The second section is told directly by Lane as he sets about confronting the killer, only to have his plan thwarted at the last moment.
The last section introduces Nigel and Georgia Strangeways as the amateur detectives on the case. They have been called in by Lane because Inspector Blount of The Yard is looking into the case. Blount has been called in because Lane’s intended victim has been murdered only a few hours after Lane’s failed attempt. Lane looks to the official eye as the most likely suspect due to the circumstances. It is up to the Strangeways’s to untangle the problem
The Beast Must Die is the best of all the Strangeways novels, of which there are seventeen. This is a dark twisted tale of plotting and revenge, of callous actions and unintended results, and it is a jolly good read. show less

Nicholas Blake made the CWA top 100 with his Nigel Strangeways novel The Beast Must Die. The novel begins with crime writer Frank Cairnes hunting down the killer of his infant son, with deadly revenge on his mind. Cairnes is a sympathetic character despite his murderous intent and you end up hoping he succeeds. There’s a largish twist in the middle and a big one at the end. Only the improbability of Cairnes’ success in finding his victim keeps it from getting five stars.

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