A review by tombomp
The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham

3.0

The first third or even half of the book promises a lot - there's a lot of threads that hint at interesting connections and the pacing is really good. After that it sort of loses momentum - too much is delivered pure dialogue exposition with limited detective work (and Campion barely features) and although it almost turns into pure thriller it doesn't really have the right pacing. The ending was fine but although I don't think any major plot lines were left hanging it still felt a bit skimpy for some of them. At the same time it was enjoyable and the whole thing did hang together well even with the odd issue or irritating bit

Spoiler

That section with the old church guy going to confront the vicious murderer alone wasn't bad exactly but the attempts at semi-profound musings didn't really connect at all and it was kind of annoying that they drew heavy attention to the fact that what he was doing was stupid and made no sense... but he did it anyway for some reason

On a sort of "moral" level... it's incredible how little sympathy gets extended to the army veterans in the marching band. It's true that

Spoiler

their motives are hardly pure, looking to get their hands on the "treasure"

but even outside of that they get scorned and judged both by the narrative voice and the characters themselves. It makes a stark contrast to the dignified nobility of the heroes, who even when they're struggling financially (while, inevitably, it not showing at all) are just Better! Having said that, a major villain in the book who seemingly is from a rough background gets treated kind of weirdly

Spoiler

Mrs Cash is not only a truly evil and cruel loan shark, she's been aiding and abetting her murdering son (which at least the old church guy probably guessed at before) and she's been doing it seemingly from a *totally free accommodation given to her by the rector*... even though it turns out she was a loan shark to his wife and seemingly even caused her death. Yet he never kicked her out and even at the end when she's arrested it's unclear what exactly she'll be charged with or anything like that. It's hard to explain exactly? There's just a weird contrast.