Head of a Traveller (first published in 1949) is the ninth book in Nicholas Blake's Nigel Strangeways series. At the beginning of the book, Nigel is staying with a friend in Oxfordshire and is introduced to the poet Robert Seaton, who lives at the nearby estate of Plash Meadows with his wife and two children. Nigel is enchanted by their beautiful house and intrigued to hear the history of how it came to be in Robert’s possession. A few months later he is summoned back to Plash Meadows under less happy circumstances: a headless body has been found in the river just upstream from the Seatons’ house. Superintendent Blount has been called in to investigate and Nigel, who has worked with Blount before, decides to make some unofficial inquiries of his own.

This is a complex mystery with a surprisingly simple solution. My first assumptions proved to be right, but I was misled by discussions of alibis and timescales, mistaken identities and who could be protecting whom. I enjoyed following the investigations of Nigel and Blount, who have a great partnership and complement each other perfectly, but they were certainly making things more complicated than they needed to be!

Bearing in mind that this is a book from the 1940s, there are some attitudes which could be offensive to modern day readers, particularly surrounding the character of Finny Black, who is a dwarf, and also regarding the rape of another character ten years earlier. These views are not at all uncommon in books from this era, but are still a little bit uncomfortable to read. Overall, though, I enjoyed this book – not as much as The Corpse in the Snowman, but it still kept me entertained for a while. And as a poet himself (Nicholas Blake is a pseudonym of Cecil Day-Lewis), he writes convincingly about Robert Seaton and his work, and has some interesting thoughts to share.

Just not my cup of tea. Most of the book I was confused or just didn't care what was happening. I get what this story was going for it just didn't appeal to me.

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.
Many thanks to Netgalley and Ipso Books.

Nicholas Blake’s amateur detective, Nigel Strangeways, is a smart, intuitive, Golden Age snoop! In “Head of a Traveller”, Blake introduces us to an almost museum-like collection of characters, including a Poet, a Precocious Child, an Artist, and a Dwarf.

Except for an uncomfortable moment when Strangeways decides to practice psychoanalysis, I enjoyed the plot twists and turns, and the progressive unlayering of history and motive.

Nicholas Blake takes a bit to get into, but once there the story just draws you in further and further, even when you think you have worked it out there is more.
It is a old style book, with lots of twists and turns and evolves very slowly but it is very enjoyable. No gratuitous sex or violence but just a well written story and great wordsmanship

This is the first Nicholas Blake I have read and although I enjoyed aspects of it, I wasn't that keen overall.

Published in 1949, Head Of Traveller sees Nigel Strangeways in his role as a sort of unofficial police consultant called to a beautiful and ancient manor house to help in solving the murder of an unidentified corpse found close by. It becomes plain that the family there are involved and an intricate puzzle is set involving complex time-lines and possible mistaken identities.

The book began excellently, I thought. "Nicholas Blake" (i.e. Cecil Day-Lewis) was a fine writer and I enjoyed the style and set-up for the first 50 pages or so. Things did begin to pall a little after that, though. Despite all the false trails and distractions, I thought the identity of the murderer was fairly plain quite early on, there is a good deal of psychologising which is largely pretty silly and in one case plain offensive, and some of the period attitudes and ignorance, especially toward a dwarf character, were pretty hard to take.

I did finish the book, which has a rather indecisive and unconventional ending, but I found it a bit of a struggle. I can only give it a very qualified recommendation.

(I received an ARC via NetGalley.)

A collector's piece: attitudes to sexual assault and developmental problems make this embarrassing in places, and it lacks the humour of some of the earlier Strangeways books. Interesting ideas about poetry, art and the artist.

This is the first I've read of Nicholas Blake's writing. It's also my first Nigel Strangeways mystery novel and I'm in a sort of moods. The story begins with a rather gory murder. A headless body has been found and the investigation leads the police to Robert Seaton's house, a famous poet. His family is rather odd and eccentric. As I was reading this I couldn't help but roll my eyes at his wife's need to control everything around the house and also the various moods and utterances of the family especially how they treat Finny Black.
It took me a while to get through the book and I was struggling with the characters who are either pompous or give little of themselves to enjoy this book. I did however love Nigel's musings and how he was quick to connect the dots in an attempt to make sense of the whole mystery that's the Seatons. Thank you to Netgalley and Ipso Books for the ARC, the setting of the late 1940s was good.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ipso Books for the digital ARC.

This is the first Nigel Strangeways mystery I have read. I found it difficult in a number of ways. When reading fiction from earlier periods, there are often attitudinal problems to be faced. Many early 20th century books are casually and, occasionally, overtly, anti-Semitic, for instance.

Here we have dwarfism/short stature being misrepresented, the trauma of rape been represented as “curable” and people being granted absolution from moral norms on grounds of their “artistic nature”.
There was also a fair amount of what I would term “twaddle” about poetry and the artistic muse.

All of these gave the story a more dated feel than many of the same period.Most of the characters I found tiresome.

Although the murder appears theatrically gruesome- headless corpse found in river- the whole solution is ridiculously simple, despite all the musings by Strangeways and Superintendent Blount and the elaborate timetables of people’s whereabouts.

The book was far too long, especially as there is no real resolution of the mystery. The reader is left to infer the outcome (I think) from Strangeways’ statement that his reconstruction was “later to be substantially confirmed”.

I shall try others in the series but this is decidedly not the one to begin with