Richard H Davis - In the Fog - Greenhill - 1985
In the Vintage Crime Classics series
These days I mostly read short stories but I suppose In the Fog - not so much a story-within-a-story as a three-stories-within-a-story - could be seen as occupying a space half-way between a set of short stories and a full-length novel.
Just as I was about to start reading this I unfortunately read an article that gave away a key aspect of the plot of this book. I decided to carry on with it and I`m glad I did.
One reason why this inadvertent spoiler didn`t really affect my pleasure in reading the book is that the aspect of the plot that was given away is pretty heavily telegraphed early on.
The style of writing is quite old-fashioned, which didn`t bother me one bit as I am a fully-fledged vintage crime buff. If you can live with that, you`ll find that Davis was an adept storyteller and that the plot(s) whizz along with some pace, bringing hefty dollops of mystery and intrigue in their wake.
I rattled through it quite quickly - it isn`t a lengthy book - and found Mr D held me attention easily throughout. Will definitely read this again at some later date.
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