IN THE FOG

American journalist Davis (1864-1916) returns to the news with a long out-of-print crime novella emerging from the London fog in 1901, together with a much more straightforward story published 10 years earlier.

Davis’ sendup of contemporaneous crime fiction begins as Lt. Ripley Sears, the U.S. naval attaché to Russia, entertains the gentlemen he’s met in London’s exclusive Grill Club with an anecdote about getting so lost and confused in a recent pea-souper that he stumbled into a flat containing the dead bodies of the Earl of Chetney and his ladylove, Russian czarina Princess Zichy. Since the Earl’s brother, Lord Arthur Chetney, was spotted fleeing from the scene, and since that chronic debtor would have profited immensely from the Earl’s death, everyone assumes he’s the killer. But a Queen’s Messenger who serves as a courier for the Foreign Office begins a second story about a diamond necklace that Queen Victoria had intended to give as a gift to Princess Zichy, who stole it from him as they traveled together in the same railway compartment, and his frantic efforts to recover the treasure before anyone realized it had been stolen. And Chudleigh, a junior solicitor, tells a third story about Inspector Lyle’s attempt to identify the Earl’s murderer after Lord Arthur, confined in hospital after an accident, denies all responsibility. Just when it seems that these three tales are foggier than London, Davis pulls a surprisingly postmodern rabbit from his hat. Readers who find his ending too meta may still enjoy “Gallegher: A Newspaper Story,” which recounts the sleuthing adventures of a remarkably resourceful office boy who works, like Davis did, for the Philadelphia Press.

Dated, dusty, but well worth reading.