The setting is Sudeley Hall preparatory school and it is sports day. The headmaster's nephew goes missing only to be found strangled and lying in a hay-castle. Unfortunately Michael Evans, one of the masters, had used this very spot for one of his secret liasions with Hero Vale, the young wife of the headmaster. Michael had been at Oxford University with Nigel Strangeways, a failed student who turned his first-rate brain to the investigation of crime, and so invited his friend to come to his aid to help prove his innocence. The police seem in no hurry to come to a decision, which gives Nigel ample time to snoop around and come to a conclusion, but he needs proof. In the tradition of carrying on as normal, the fathers versus the boys cricket match goes ahead, but has a dreadful conclusion. What passion is driving the murderer and how can he be cornered? A reconstruction of the sports day reveals all.
The first Nicholas Blake novel to be published. It introduces the amateur detective, Nigel Strangeways, who was to appear in most of the author's crime stories. C. Day Lewis had taken up a career in teaching from 1927 as a master at Summer Fields, a preparatory school in Oxford, where he stayed for a year. Every June the school held a Hay Feast, when mock castles were built as a backdrop to a grand picnic. The picnic was followed by a battle between boys and masters to take control of each others castles. The author called upon his experiences here, and at Cheltenham Junior school, for his first crime novel.
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