The Tiger in the Smoke

⚖The case for it

A London pea-souper published months before the real Great Smog, and readers say “the fog is almost a character in itself,” hiding hunter and hunted from each other. Jack Havoc is the achievement, controlled and charming and remorseless enough that readers rank him among the genre’s convincing psychopaths. Canon Avril is the counterweight, and “the most interesting character is Meg’s father, the clergyman Canon Avril,” whose forgiveness reads as strength; his confrontation with Havoc is the scene people name. The ragged band of war-wounded ex-servicemen is the image that stays. “This is a thriller, not a detective novel, and a superb one.”

— the honest librarian

✕The case against

Campion is “pretty nonexistent for the whole book,” which disappoints readers who came to a Campion novel for Campion. The pace sags badly after the fog chase, with the high point landing early and the last stretch running on. Canon Avril’s theology stalls what it was meant to deepen. Coincidences accumulate and characters act against their own motives. The book also ties disability and war injury to menace throughout, which a disabled reviewer calls out directly as stereotyping. One reader finds the whole thing “like two novels smashed into one.”

— the honest librarian

5h

honest hours

7

sittings