Nigel Strangeways is a fictional British private detective created by Cecil Day-Lewis, writing under the pen name of Nicholas Blake.
[1] A gentleman detective Strangeways is an Oxford-educated writer and nephew of an Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard.
In the first novel A Question of Proof he is modelled on the poet W. H. Auden but this aspect became less marked as the series progressed.
A variety of locations are used for the murder investigations he undertakes including a public school (A Question of Proof, 1935), a brewery (There's Trouble Brewing, 1937), a holiday camp (Malice in Wonderland, 1940) a Whitehall ministry (Minute for Murder, 1947), a publishing house (End of Chapter, 1957) and a cruise ship (The Widow's Cruise, 1959).
[4] End of Chapter and The Beast Must Die were separately adapted for the 1960s BBC anthology series Detective.