Forgotten Book - The Case of the Abominable Snowman

A publisher asked me recently to become involved with a Christmas writing project. This didn't work out, but the invitation inspired me to get round to reading a book I acquired last year. This is The Corpse in the Snowman, which is the American title for Nicholas Blake's The Case of the Abominable Snowman, a Christmas mystery set in war-time. The appeal of my copy lies in part in its inscription - to Blake's fellow poet, that very interesting character Laurie Lee, whose Cider with Rosie made quite an impression on me as a schoolboy.

But is the book itself any good? My answer is a definite yes. Since reading it, I've read one or two negative comments online but they are very much in the minority and simply reflect the truth that you can never please everyone. It's fair to say that the quality of Christmas mystery novels is variable, but this is one of the better ones, not just because of the calibre of the writing but also because the storyline is intriguing and the complicated plot is well constructed. 

What I hadn't realised before reading the book was that it is a good example of the whowasdunin. We know from the start that a body has been discovered inside a snowman (ah, those were the days, when you could build a snowman and it would survive for ages). But what is the identity of the corpse? The answer is as well concealed as the victim. 

This is a Nigel Strangeways mystery set during the war, which is no more than a background presence. The physical setting is a country house, to which Nigel is invited by an intriguing if rather strange old lady, to solve the puzzle of the bizarre behaviour of a cat. Matters take a turn for the worse when the naked body of a young woman is found. She has hanged herself - or has she? Strangeways soon becomes convinced that she is the victim of murder. The result is a book that I found consistently interesting.