Minute for Murder by Nicholas Blake

World War II is now over. Nigel Strangeways had spent the war working in the Ministry of Morale which provided information about the war for the British public. Now he had only six months left in his tour of duty. Strangeways had grown to know the people he worked with. He possibly did not really like all of them, but he had become accustomed to them.

One of the most interesting people who had passed through the department was Charles Kennington who had worked at the Ministry, become very good friends with Nita Price, the department secretary, and then had left. The news said that Kennington had died fighting on the Rhine. Now with the war over, the news had it that Charles had been acting as a British spy in Europe and had captured Stultz who was the number three Nazi leader. Charles had taken from Stultz the poison capsule which was the way the German leader had expected to commit suicide.

Now Kennington had come back to see his old co-workers, and he had brought with him the poison capsule. At a small party with members of the department, the capsule was passed around for all to see. Tea was served and when Nita Prince drank hers, she died immediately. She had been a victim of the poison capsule. To use the capsule, it was necessary to break it, but the remains of the capsule was not in Nita's tea or in the office where the party was held or in the street below the window of the room.  Was Nita the intended victim or was it intended for someone else? Inspector Blount asked Nigel to assist in the investigation since he had been so useful in prior investigations.

The first question to be answered was why any one would murder Nita Prince. She was liked by the people in the department. It was rumored that she was having an affair with Jimmy Lake who was the head of the department.  Jimmy Lake was, however, married to Alice who was the sister of Charles Kennington, and Alice had been present at the party when Nita was poisoned. Nigel's investigation would also turn up a person in the department who might have been collaborating with the Nazi's during the war. It would be up to Nigel to untangle the complex scheme of personal relationships in this department in order to find the murderer.

This book was published in 1947 by Nicholas Blake which was the pen name of Cecil Day-Louis who would become the poet laureate of England. During World War II, Blake had worked as a publication editor for the Ministry of Information, and it is likely that he got his idea for Minute for Murder during his time there.