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kxhte's review
2.75
me pareció muy original la primera parte en donde podemos leer el diario de alguien que está planeando un asesinato, pero a medida que leía el libro y aparecía Nigel (<3) me comenzó a aparecer aburrido todo el proceso de investigación y cuando llegamos al final, en donde se expuso al criminal, se me hizo medio confuso. normalmente amo los libros en donde el narrador es el asesino pero no se que pasó acá... es una lástima porque todo el mundo piensa en este libro cuando me recomiendan leer a nicholas blake.
queenbee6's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
duparker's review
4.0
3.5 Stars. Overall very intriguing mystery. It might have been stronger and I not watched the television version. Having the setting so different, late 1930s versus current, added something to the book which I was unexpecting. Overall I like the style of intermixing the journal entries with third person account. I might come back to the series as a whole in the future.
wmf's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
elilhrairah's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
bmip666's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
efbeckett's review against another edition
4.0
I wonder if I am the only one who hates the moments in mystery novels when the detective congratulates the culprit on a particularly "brilliant" masterstroke because it reads like the novelist patting themselves on the back?
This is a rather good mystery with an interestingly different approach to telling the story which makes it still seem fresh 80 years on. Less well aged due to many years of studies are some of Strangeways' conclusions based on what battered wives do and don't do.
Well worth reading, though the film Claude Chabrol made from it is immeasurably superior.
This is a rather good mystery with an interestingly different approach to telling the story which makes it still seem fresh 80 years on. Less well aged due to many years of studies are some of Strangeways' conclusions based on what battered wives do and don't do.
Well worth reading, though the film Claude Chabrol made from it is immeasurably superior.
smcleish's review
4.0
Originally published on my blog here in September 2000.
A clever crime novel for its time by Poet Laureate, C. Day Lewis, The Beast Must Die is now a little obvious. This is partly because it anticipates some of the ways in which detective fiction has gone on to develop. It has one central character, Frank Cairns, and is a psychological study of a murder, like [b:Malice Aforethought|309434|Malice Aforethought|Francis Iles|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173619269s/309434.jpg|2728518], though it seems to me that it succeeds as an analysis of the reasons for murder where that novel fails.
The novel is divided into four parts, the first and longest of which is a diary kept by Cairns from the day that he decides to kill. This decision is taken as he is mourning the death of his young son, killed by a hit and run driver; this man, who has destroyed Cairns' life, is to be the victim. First Cairns has to succeed in a task which has baffled the police, and discover the identity of the driver; then he has to get to know him so that he can get close enough to kill him. All this is recorded in the diary, and then, just as the murder is to take place, the victim (thoroughly unpleasant bully George Rattery) reveals that he has found the hidden diary and sent it to his solicitors. When Rattery is poisoned the same day, Cairns is of course suspected, and calls in the amateur detective Nigel Strangeways (who appears in several Nicholas Blake novels) to help him clear his name.
As well as the psychological portrait of Cairns, the novel also strays into unusual territory for a crime novel, as it examines the possible ethical justifications for murder. The reader's sympathy is with Cairns all the way through, particularly after the killer of his son is revealed to be such an unpleasant person, tyrannising his cowed wife and sensitive son. (The scales are thus loaded in favour of the murderer in a not too subtle way, but that doesn't really matter.) Blake seriously manages to get the reader wondering whether 'the beast must die' rather than to be allowed to make the lives of those around him totally miserable.
The Beast Must Die is perhaps slightly overpowered as a crime novel by the weight of its more literary themes. It could perhaps do with being a bit longer - and there are not many novels of which that could be said.
A clever crime novel for its time by Poet Laureate, C. Day Lewis, The Beast Must Die is now a little obvious. This is partly because it anticipates some of the ways in which detective fiction has gone on to develop. It has one central character, Frank Cairns, and is a psychological study of a murder, like [b:Malice Aforethought|309434|Malice Aforethought|Francis Iles|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173619269s/309434.jpg|2728518], though it seems to me that it succeeds as an analysis of the reasons for murder where that novel fails.
The novel is divided into four parts, the first and longest of which is a diary kept by Cairns from the day that he decides to kill. This decision is taken as he is mourning the death of his young son, killed by a hit and run driver; this man, who has destroyed Cairns' life, is to be the victim. First Cairns has to succeed in a task which has baffled the police, and discover the identity of the driver; then he has to get to know him so that he can get close enough to kill him. All this is recorded in the diary, and then, just as the murder is to take place, the victim (thoroughly unpleasant bully George Rattery) reveals that he has found the hidden diary and sent it to his solicitors. When Rattery is poisoned the same day, Cairns is of course suspected, and calls in the amateur detective Nigel Strangeways (who appears in several Nicholas Blake novels) to help him clear his name.
As well as the psychological portrait of Cairns, the novel also strays into unusual territory for a crime novel, as it examines the possible ethical justifications for murder. The reader's sympathy is with Cairns all the way through, particularly after the killer of his son is revealed to be such an unpleasant person, tyrannising his cowed wife and sensitive son. (The scales are thus loaded in favour of the murderer in a not too subtle way, but that doesn't really matter.) Blake seriously manages to get the reader wondering whether 'the beast must die' rather than to be allowed to make the lives of those around him totally miserable.
The Beast Must Die is perhaps slightly overpowered as a crime novel by the weight of its more literary themes. It could perhaps do with being a bit longer - and there are not many novels of which that could be said.
alexlubertozzi's review
5.0
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 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.
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