Here is another "locked room" murder mystery by Brand. This one, as can be gathered from the title, is set in London in 1952. WWII is over and London is a bit of a shambles and, worst of all, is almost constantly coated with thick, choking "fog" that makes it impossible to see anything when one is sneaking about after dark. This is a nice way to create mood and terror without having to introduce menacing people as simply being alone outside and blind in a massive city, where one can hear that there are people walking (their shoes "click click" on the damp "greasy" sidewalks) but you cannot see who they are--friend or foe? There's no way to know. So, effectively, The Fog becomes the most important character in this book and it is the device that locks the room, as it ensures that only a tiny number of people are possible suspects for the murder that starts it all.
The murder happens early on and, as I mentioned in my previous post, Brand's victims are usually very unlikable and so no one misses them or is even remotely saddened when looking at their noggins cracked open like a smashed boiled egg. (There is one exception but this isn't it.) In this case, the victim is a French acquaintance, Raoul, who is notoriously lecherous which means all the women have a motive because each, it turns out, has been the victim of his wandering hands and genitals. What's extra satisfying about the book is that the women--there are three of them--have no idea that the others had been similarly victimized and each lived alone with their grief and shame. Once the facts came out--because Inspector Cockrill discovers all--they suddenly feel a kinship with one another, become allies (needlessly lying for each other because each thinks one of the other killed him and so they are covering for her), and each envies the murderer, wishing THEY had been the one to kill the guy. Again we benefit from Brand's hospital experience in her younger days as the murder weapon is a nasty bit of medical equipment, a mastoid mallet, which just happened to be lying about near the door where the body was found...Or was it?
At the center of the story is Rose, a "sweet young thing" who is perceived as ditsy by the men (but not the women), who is pregnant and desperately wants to find a doctor who will "give her something to take care of it." This matters not only because several men have VERY strong, disapproving views about women having sex before marriage (none of the women share those views) but all disapprove of women having an abortion--yes, to the point of ensuring that Rose is stopped at ALL COSTS. (No, the irony is a man scheming to kill a pregnant woman to stop her from having an abortion because he thinks abortions are immoral is NOT lost on Brand and is precisly the point.) One of the male characters is deeply disappointed in her and furious with whomever he suspects is the "father" (and his suspicions rotate through suspects as he learns more and more about Rose's recent "holiday" in France...) and another is dangerously jealous of the "father" and angry with her as he wanted her "pure" for himself. If only he wasn't "so old and ugly" and if only Rose hadn't laughingly told him so when he asked her to marry him...
Then the bodies really start piling up which shortens the suspect list but also makes it more inexplicable, since whatever motivated the murder of Raoul can't possibly create a motive for the other murders...Or can it? Eventually Cockrill (nicknamed "Cockie" by one of the characters who knew him from when he lived in Kent) starts working with rather than against Charlesworth (his Big Black Smoke counterpart) and the pieces fall into place.
Why was Cockie in London? No particular reason. And why does a Kent police inspector have authority to investigate a murder in London? He doesn't, which is why his clomping around really ticks off the London officers.
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