Review: The Tiger in the Smoke (Albert Campion Mystery, #14)
Gaby Meares
What an extraordinary book! It takes the reader to places most unexpected. Margery Allingham has written a novel that is steeped with a pervading sense of menace and foreboding.
Set a few years after the end of WWII, London is struggling under the blanket of a heavy fog, which is almost a character in its own right; creating fear and distrust amongst the London population. Into this gloom Jack Havoc (by name and by nature) has escaped from prison, and is ruthless in his pursuit of a treasure hidden during the war in France.
However, for me, Havoc was not as terrifying as the band of misfits and damaged return soldiers, led by the albino known as Tiddy Doll, who stumble through the fog, begging for coins and playing discordant music. The sense of malevolence and madness created by this band of ‘freaks’ was palpable and very disturbing. It reminded me very much of Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock, and the terrifying character Pinkie.
This book is so much more than a crime novel: it is a study in good versus evil, and what war does to men and for that matter, to a city’s population. Allingham’s characters, particularly the saint-like Canon Avril, ponder the big questions; about life, and its purpose; about making moral decisions, and what part luck plays in the hand a person is dealt.
Although this is number 14 in the Albert Campion series, you do not need to have read any others in the series to enjoy this novel.
Highly recommended.