Talk of the Town is
an Everyman noir-cum-whodunit via a damsel in distress with occasional patter
tossed in from a screwball comedy. The premise is vaguely similar to an earlier
Charles Williams novel, Go Home, Stranger (1954), as both feature
amateur outsiders attempting to solve crimes (though Bill Chatham, protagonist of Talk
of the Town, is a former professional). The plotting of Talk of the Town is thin, largely because so
many of Chatham’s decisions are based on
there-was-a-small-chance-but-it-was-the-only-chance logic. Nevertheless, Talk of the Town is
somewhat more engrossing than Go Home, Stranger because Williams does a
better job of making his protagonist a participant in (rather than an observer
of) the plot. Grade: C+
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