Reading the Detectives discussion

Welcome to our Feb/March 22 buddy read of The Deadly Joker by Nicholas Blake - a stand-alone mystery, published in 1963.

When John Waterson and his young wife chose Netherplash Cantorum, Dorset, for their retirement years, they could not have predicted that this idyllic spot had one severe but unforeseeable drawback: among its inhabitants was a practical joker whose fertile mind ran to the most bizarre and grotesque designs.

The Village was no place for a quite retirement, or for a gentle recuperation from the nervous breakdown that had afflicted Waterson's wife. In Netherplash, the peace is continually disrupted with extraordinary events tripping over each other which, in the end, lead to a hideous and painful murder.

Please feel free to post spoilers in this thread.

Finished now. I suspected the narrator as his love for his wife seemed too good to be true. I thought he had written her original poison pen letters and thus caused her break down. Not sure how I feel about Day-Lewis's ending.

The ending, like much of the mystery, was very strange. I agree that I don't quite know what to make of it. I also suspected the narrator - I think a lack of suspects was an issue for the reader.

I think I suspected his wife - I kept wondering what the secrets in her past were, which turned out not to be quite so dire after all.

I didn’t like this at all, the whole tone of it was unpleasant and disturbing. I thought Blake had made the murderer too obvious with the Oxford don describing his practical jokes right at the beginning, so kept thinking it had to be someone else. From the disgusting puppy episode I gave up and just skim read to the end. Blake’s elegant writing couldn’t save this one for me.

There are some very odd books by this author. It's almost as though he's in a bad mood before he starts and just keeps going!

It reminded me of Head of a Traveler which I also disliked. I thought they might have been written at the same time when he was in a gloomy period, but this is actually much later. So I think your theory may be right!

Perhaps he wrote mysteries when he was in dire financial straits and in no mood for poetry.

I also think his romantic life came into it. I am keen to read both his biography and that of Rosamond Lehmann. I disliked Head of a Traveler too, Pamela, and agree it had a similar feel. Sandy might be right and he may have seen mysteries as just a way to make some money on the side (hence the pen name) but he also seemed to use them as some form of catharsis, in airing unpleasant views through his characters.