ALA Reading List Award for Best Mystery GASLIT LONDON IS BROUGHT TO ITS KNEES IN DAVID MORRELL’S BRILLIANT HISTORICAL THRILLER. Thomas De Quincey, infamous for his memoir Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, is the major suspect in a series of ferocious mass murders identical to ones that terrorized London forty-three years earlier. The blueprint for the killings seems to be De Quincey’s essay … killings seems to be De Quincey’s essay “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts.” Desperate to clear his name but crippled by opium addiction, De Quincey is aided by his devoted daughter Emily and a pair of determined Scotland Yard detectives.
In Murder as a Fine Art, David Morrell plucks De Quincey, Victorian London, and the Ratcliffe Highway murders from history. Fogbound streets become a battleground between a literary star and a brilliant murderer, whose lives are linked by secrets long buried but never forgotten.more
I just finished this last night and I couldn’t love it more! If you’re a fan of Caleb Carr’s The Alienist, this is right up your alley. Gritty, dark, yet memorable characters whom I love and they added a relief of the tension of the plot. I have a huge TBR pile, yet I’m battling not diving into the next Thomas De Quincey book. Morrell is a master …
If you can get past the gruesome murder descriptions it was a great who done it novel. The London setting reminded me a lot of Sherlock Holmes. The daughter is a great strong character when no of that time period was.
Without a doubt, David Morrell deserves his place among the pantheon of thriller authors. What I like best about him is that he continues to challenge himself and find new ways to captivate his readers. MURDER AS A FINE ART will immerse you in the gaslit, cobblestone streets of Victorian London. Highly recommended.
It’s London in 1854 and a killer has murdered a family of five people with the threat of more killings to come. It seems to be the work of a monster, yet in the result are the machinations of a person who strives to craft his brutality into a composition of scene, design, light, and sentient sentiment. It’s almost artistry in the mind of the …
The author, a wordsmith of the first order, crafts intriguing stories of several different genres. This one, a historical novel, flings the reader right into England when opium ruled and detectives were not hindered by Television type CSI.
David Morrell, the father of Rambo, goes off his usual writing track with this book and series. The research he performed about Victorian England is impressive in and of itself. The story line is fascinating and entertaining. Highly recommended.
Very clever story, and intriguing characters.
Morrell makes the Victorian era come alive in this story of murder and intrigue.