Nicholas Blake was the crime-fiction pseudonym of Cecil Day Lewis, poet, translator of Virgil, critic, and editor. His twenty detective novels, sixteen featuring the cases of amateur detective Nigel Strangeways, are the equal in their genre to his poetry in its genre. This dual success in both a popular form and the most elite of literary forms is a remarkable achievement and an indication of the breadth of his interests and talents. Although he stated that he wrote his first detective novel because he needed one hundred pounds to repair a leaking roof, he never apologized for his detective fiction. He admitted that it enabled him to give up teaching, which he did not enjoy, and he never tried to hide the identity of Nicholas Blake, though both the novels and his mystery criticism, including reviews for the Spectator for many years, continued to be published under that...