The first Friday of the month is when I share my best-loved classic fiction and Margery Allingham is one of my favorite authors. In her long series of literary detective fiction with universal uncle, Albert Campion, The Tiger in the Smoke is the most thrilling. It will keep you looking over your shoulder…
The Tiger in the Smoke
London, ‘the Smoke’ to Cockneys and the hipsters who appropriate their slang, is living up to its nickname: an unusual cold snap has combined with the fug from coal-fires to produce the ‘Great Smog’, blanketing the city in choking shadow. And lurking in those shadows is Jack Havoc, a killer with a particular fondness for knives. Havoc is by far the most dangerous villain that Albert Campion has ever encountered, and his startlingly realistic menace, combined with the light touch common to all the Campion novels, gives the book a modern feel, as it straddles a line between Golden Age detective fiction and contemporary psychological suspense.
