From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

Head of a Traveller

Nicholas Blake

Start date: May 15, 2019

Finish date: June 5, 2019

Discussion: Buddy reads

Why we're reading this: Carrying on with the popular Nigel Strangeways series.
[close] Carrying on with the popular Nigel Strangeways series.

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What Members Thought

Dec 21, 2014 Susan rated it liked it · review of another edition

This is the ninth novel in the Nigel Strangeways series, by author Nicholas Blake (pen name for Cecil Day-Lewis). This book was published in 1949 and follows “Minute for Murder,” which saw Strangeways at the end of the Second World War, widowed after his wife had been killed in the Blitz. Oddly, considering what a large role his wife played in earlier books, her death rarely got a mention in “Minute for Murder,” and she seems completely forgotten about by this novel.

Nigel Strangeways is staying This is the ninth novel in the Nigel Strangeways series, by author Nicholas Blake (pen name for Cecil Day-Lewis). This book was published in 1949 and follows “Minute for Murder,” which saw Strangeways at the end of the Second World War, widowed after his wife had been killed in the Blitz. Oddly, considering what a large role his wife played in earlier books, her death rarely got a mention in “Minute for Murder,” and she seems completely forgotten about by this novel.

Nigel Strangeways is staying with a friend in Oxfordshire, when they visit poet Robert Seaton. Seaton lives in a beautiful house with his second wife Janet, children Lionel and Vanessa andan odd servant called Finny, while artist Rennell Torrance and his daughter, Mara, live in a converted part of the building. The house is actually the former family home of Janet, who is proud of her ancestry and a cold and haughty woman. In fact, the entire family seem ill at ease with each other and their focus seems to be Robert - the man his wife refers to, reverently, as “the Poet.”

Strangeways returns to London, but is contacted a few weeks later by his friend, who informs him that a headless body has been found upstream from Seaton’s house. When his old friend, Superintendent Blount, becomes involved, Strangeways is persuaded to visit the Seaton’s again. In fact, he actually moves in to the house to study Seaton’s manuscripts. Rumours abound about the family and their involvement with the body. Strangeways discovers that a man was seen walking through the woods shortly before the body was found – could he have been Robert’s elder brother, long feared dead? Also, what is the involvement of Finny and how is he related to the family? Now, it has to be said that Finny is a dwarf and the way he is referred to in this book jar with modern sensibilities. I do try to accept that books written in different eras obviously found behaviours and language acceptable that we now don’t, but some of the language does make uncomfortable reading.

Overall, I did not find this the best of the Strageways mysteries and not just because of the character of Finny and the way he was viewed by some of those in the book. However, one of the interesting strands of the storyline concerns Robert Seaton as a poet. Obviously, Cecil Day-Lewis was a poet himself and the way he views the importance of Seaton’s work is very interesting to read. However, the motive for the murder, and the victim, was fairly easy to spot and generally the storyline was quite simplistic – while the characters in Seaton’s household were not particularly sympathetic. I have liked the mysteries featuring Nigel Strangeways so far and, even though I did not enjoy this as much as earlier books in the series, I will certainly read on. ...more

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Mar 05, 2018 dmayr rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-detective-series, books-i-liked, crime-in-vintage, murder-in-a-countryhouse

Nigel Strangeways was immediately captivated with his first vision of Plash Meadow, with its "drifts and swirls and swags" and "cataleptic trance of white and yellow roses.". However, his second return to the house mirrors his mood, as "It seemed less enchanted, more awake than when he had last seen it. The roses-that was it: most of them had withered, and there was a tarnished look on the few that were left. It was a beautiful house, oh yes; but only a house now, not a brilliant, enervating dre ...more

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Sep 28, 2012 Bev rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: british-mystery, vintage-mystery, mystery, mount-tbr-2014

It may just be the mood I was in yesterday--I spent my morning in a meeting where I felt like the speaker was an adult in a Charlie Brown special. Nothing he said sounded like real language to me. And then last night when I was finishing up Nicholas Blake's Head of a Traveller, he just wasn't making sense to me. (view spoiler) ...more

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Jul 29, 2018 ShanDizzy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

What on earth am I doing here, Nigel mused. What sort of a trap am I walking into? And why should the idea of a trap come into my head at all? A great poet, his well-born and distinguished wife, his son, his daughter - what could be more reassuring? Just because a headless body is found half a mile away from their house, I come here with a mind already half-poisoned, looking for the sinister detail in every hole and corner, in every artless word. A girl plunges into a river, and I have to think ...more

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Feb 19, 2020 Jacqueline Vick rated it liked it · review of another edition

I'm not really sure what Nigel Strangeways' real job is. Something to do with literature, which makes him an amateur sleuth back in the day when county police were happy to accept the help of a successful consultant.

It may seem irrelevant that Strangeways has a day job, but it's the key to his interest in the murder, which involves a headless corpse found near the property of a respected poet, Robert Seaton. Nigel's interest is in the poet, not the murder, but as the investigation begins to tou ...more

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Aug 01, 2017 Damaskcat rated it liked it · review of another edition

Nigel Strangeways admires poet Robert Seaton whose reputation is declining so he is delighted when a friend introduces him Seaton. But the poet himself seems eccentric and unpredictable and his household is strange to say the least. When a headless body is found in a river close to the house the various members of the household comes under suspicion. Strangeways is invited to investigate along with his friend Superintendent Blunt.

I found the attitudes expressed by the various members of the hous ...more

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Dec 29, 2017 Annarella rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I find this book bewildering and entertaining at same time with a bit of gothic in between.
I really appreciated the story, the characters and the plot twist. This a story of the Golden Age and it has pros and cons of the era.
Recommended.

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