In the Fog (Library of Congress Crime Classics)

A cleverly atmospheric story-within-a-story with a twist, wherein four members of an exclusive London Gentleman's Club take turns weaving a tale of a double murder.

On the evening following the great fog of 1897, four strangers are dining at an exclusive gentleman's club, while a fifth, Sir Andrew, is just finishing the last few pages of a pulp mystery novel. As Sir Andrew rises to leave, a visiting American diplomat announces that the previous evening, he stumbled upon the scene of a double murder which has left Scotland Yard detectives baffled.

Sir Andrew listens raptly as each diner in turn each adds his own bits of background and theories about who could have killed the Russian princess and the young British adventurer. Two clever twists will have readers themselves feeling as though they, too, have been wandering in the fog.

Richard Harding Davis was a best-selling novelist and playwright, but is most famous for being the first American war correspondent during the Spanish-American War. His reporting helped create the legend of the Rough Riders, which boosted the reputation and political career of Theodore Roosevelt. Davis was instrumental in the evolution of the American magazine, and his clean-shaven good looks were the model for the Gibson Man, created by artist Charles Dana Gibson at the turn of the twentieth century. At one point, he had three plays running simultaneously on Broadway, and two of his books were made into films.