Nicholas Blake
4/5 stars
After extension detective work, Frank Cairns discovers the man (George Rattery) behind the hit-and-run death of his son. He plots to murder Rattery, keeping copious notes in his journal. When Cairns fails in his plan, yet Rattery is found murdered by someone else, his journal surfaces placing all the suspicion on him. He hires Nigel Strangeways to prove his innocence in the face of certain guilt.
This is a well-plotted, well-crafted mystery that kept me changing my mind throughout the entire book. My only quibble with the Strangeways series is that the author (Poet Laureate Cecil Day Lewis) condescends to his readers, as though detective fiction and it's readers are slightly less intelligent than Day Lewis himself. Overlooking that, the Strangeways novels are solid Golden Age mysteries well worth reading.
