The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham****

Reading dates: 10 August – 10 September 2024

I am very fond of the Macmillan Collectors editions, of which I have a few (such a fair few I am having new bookshelves built for them, oops!). I find them very pleasurable to read as objects and the main success for the format in my life is that they take me away from the phone in the evenings. It all started with Josephine Tey and I have been slowly discovering the classic British crime writers.

The Tiger in the Smoke is my first Margery Allingham and although I did not love it as much as Tey, it had some curious aspects to the setting, the plot and character development. Chief amongst these is the Canon Avril, which brings into the narrative the supernatural aspects I like. He is the one uttering the two beautiful reflections I highlighted from the novel:

Mourning is not forgetting, he said gently, his helplessness vanishing and his voice becoming wise. ‘It is an undoing. Every minute tie has to be untied and something permanent and valuable recovered and assimilated from the knot. The end is gain, of course.
Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be made strong, in fact. But the process is like all other human births, painful and long and dangerous.

Beware of anger. It is the most difficult to remove of all the hin-drances. But it is the alcohol of the body, you know, and the devil of it is that it deadens the perceptions.

The supernatural in the novel, the way dharma’s influence is felt in the narrative, is reminiscent of the old Indian puranas I love so much.

The setting, as the title suggests, is wrapped in fog, like glasgow was las Sunday. This has an effect on all the senses, a disorientation and an unnerving which presented such nice plot ideas. And as for the plot, it is classic and satisfying. I am not sure I would re-read, but I would definitely reach out for my other Allingham in the collection.