"Shell of Death" by Nicholas Blake

Shell of Death is a classic 1936 Golden Age mystery novel by Cecil Day-Lewis, written under his pen name Nicholas Blake.

Day-Lewis initially used the pseudonym when publishing his first crime novel, A Question of Proof, because he feared the lucrative detective genre would tarnish his reputation as a serious poet. 

The Spectator noted that the author's prose style had a "natural and easy grace" and declared that Blake had firmly stepped into the "front rank of contemporary detective novelists." 

The News Chronicle (London) went even further, boldly calling him "the best living writer who writes detective fiction."

However, within a very short time, the British reading public and literary critics easily identified Day-Lewis as the man behind the mask.

First Penguin Books paperback edition. Printed in the U.S.A. 1944. Good condition. Cover slightly worn, partially damaged on upper spine. Interior pages yellowed.

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