The Murder in the Fog

First impression: this is unreadable. Silver-grey text over a blurry green-and-white photograph ... there are moments when there's barely any contrast between background and font.

I may have missed something somewhere (see "unreadable", above) but I'm not sure why we seem to have concluded that there's a killer on the loose who's somehow set his sights on the strange girl who contacted our hero on his phone. Because someone sent her a poster image from the movie "Se7en"? That seems more than a little flimsy. (Have people actually been killed? I got the impression that there was this one other girl who was attacked, and there was something at one point about stumbling across someone's arm, but I don't think that was followed up with an actual discovery of an actual body. Was it? Again, see "unreadable", above.)

The rest of the story follows in similar fashion. There's a lot of exposition. A lot. They also say "by the way" an awful lot, as a means of volunteering new information. I don't know ... for the sake of making things interesting, shouldn't there be some challenge involved in digging up information? In any case, very little of it makes any sense. I get the sense that the author wants to write something in the style of "The Twilight Zone" or "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", something about creeping terror with a final twist, but hasn't really figured out how.

This isn't a matter of not having a good command of English, and I'm not sure that very much of it is really a translation issue. I think it's more a matter of not having yet attained a good handle on how to craft either a story or a believable character. That sort of mastery comes with time: time spent watching people, reading widely, and asking, "What would I do in such a situation?"

As a breakfast, this is like a mushy, crumbly mix of burnt bits and soggy batter, that's supposed to be pancakes but sadly isn't, washed down with a glass of hot water. I appreciate that an effort has been made (some others have made no effort at all) but I think I will pass.