The Smiler with the Knife

The Smiler with the Knife is a 1939 thriller novel by the Anglo-Irish writer Cecil Day-Lewis under the pen name Nicholas Blake. It is part of his series featuring the private detective although the focus of the novel is primarily on his wife Georgia. The title is a line from The Knight's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer. Written the year the Second World War broke out, it portrays a pre-war plot by aristocratic fascists to establish a dictatorship in Britain in alliance with the Axis Powers. It was serialised in the News Chronicle over the summer of 1939. Orson Welles was interested in directing an adaptation of the novel as a film as part of his contract with RKO Pictures but was unable to get the project off the ground. Maurice Ashley wrote a positive review of the book in the Times Literary Supplement.