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MURDER AS A FINE ART

David Morell David Morrell

Thomas De Quincey, best known for his sensational memoir Confessions of an Opium Eater, is the prime suspect in a series of horrific murders that paralyze London.
The killer seems to be imitating De Quincey's true-crime essay "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts." Desperate to prevent more atrocities but crippled by opium addiction, De Quincey is aided by his brilliant daughter, Emily, as well as two determined Scotland Yard detectives. MURDER AS A FINE ART recreates gaslit London as a battleground between a literary luminary and a master killer whose secrets are deeply entwined with De Quincey's own, in a riveting thriller along the lines of Dan Simmons' Drood, Matthew Pearl's The Dante Club, and Caleb Carr's The Alienist.

MURDER AS A FINE ART will make you believe that you’re in 1854 London as the author blends fiction with fact in a harrowing exhumation of the infamous Ratcliffe Highway murders, a series of mass killings that rivaled those of Jack the Ripper for terrorizing London and all of England.
Thomas De Quincey was one of the most fascinating personalities of Victorian England. He was obsessed about the Ratcliffe Highway killings and wrote about them vividly in his classic essay, “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts.”

De Quincey invented the term “subconscious” and anticipated Freud by a half century. He was the first person to write about drug addiction in his infamous "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater". He inspired Edgar Allan Poe, who in turn inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to create Sherlock Holmes. This forerunner of the greatest detective will lead you into the streets, slums, mansions, and prisons of gaslit London. As a literary luminary battles a brilliant murderer, their lives are linked by secrets long buried but never forgotten.

David Morrell is best known for his debut 1972 novel First Blood, which would later become the successful Rambo film franchise starring Sylvester Stallone. He has written 28 novels, and his work has been translated into 26 languages. He is also a former professor of American Literature at the University of Iowa and received his PhD from Penn State.
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Book

Published 2013-05-01 by Mulholland Books / Little, Brown

Book

Published 2013-05-01 by Mulholland Books / Little, Brown

Comments

Czech: Generights Italy: Nord Poland: Albatros Russia: Atticus

Exceptional historical mystery . . . riveting [with] page-flipping action, taut atmosphere, and multifaceted characters.

Brilliant . . . an epitome of the intelligent page turner.

A masterpiece—I don’t use that word lightly. A fantastic historical thriller, beautifully written, intricately plotted, and populated with unforgettable characters. It brilliantly recreates the London of gaslit streets, fogs, hansom cabs, and Scotland Yard. If you liked The Alienist, you will absolutely love this book. I was spellbound from the first page to last.

Morrell’s use of De Quincey’s life is absolutely amazing. I literally couldn’t put it down: I felt as though I was in Dickens as he described London’s fog and in Collins when we entered Emily’s diary. There were beautiful touches all the way through. MURDER AS A FINE ART is a triumph.