A review by cmbohn
Thou Shell of Death by Nicholas Blake

4.0

My friend Nancy has been reading some Nicholas Blake and after reading her review, I decided to see what my library has of his books. I found an anthology with three books: Thou Shell of Death, The Beast Must Die, and The Corpse in the Snowman.

The first one, Thou Shell of Death, features regular Blake sleuth and private investigator Nigel Strangeways. A famous aviator has been receiving death threats and wants a detective on hand to try to catch the killer during a Christmas dinner party. But come the 26th, Nigel finds the aviator dead in a shed, with only a single set of footprints leading to the building. Suicide? Or murder?

Blake throws in plenty of clues and red herrings, giving the reader a fair chance to figure it out, but I have to admit I got it wrong until last quarter of the book, and even then, there were several twists I didn't anticipate. Overall, a very fun read that has me looking forward to other two books in this collection.