Murder as a Fine Art
by:
David Morrell (author)
The Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811 were the most notorious mass killings in their day. Never fully explained, they brought London and all of England to the verge of panic. Forty-three years later, the equally notorious 'opium eater' Thomas De Quincey returns to London. Along with his...
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The Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811 were the most notorious mass killings in their day. Never fully explained, they brought London and all of England to the verge of panic. Forty-three years later, the equally notorious 'opium eater' Thomas De Quincey returns to London. Along with his Confessions, he is known for a scandalous essay about the killings: 'On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts'. Days after his arrival, a family is killed in the same horrific way as the earlier murders. It seems someone is using the essay as an inspiration - and a blueprint. And De Quincey himself is the obvious suspect. Aided by his daughter Emily and two determined Scotland Yard detectives, he must uncover the truth before more blood is shed... and London itself falls prey to attack. In MURDER AS A FINE ART, gaslit London becomes a battleground between a literary star and a demented murderer - whose lives are linked by secrets long buried, but never forgotten.
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Format: kindle
ISBN:
9781444755701
Publish date: May 9th 2013
Publisher: Mulholland Books
Pages no: 336
Edition language: English
Category:
European Literature,
British Literature,
Adult Fiction,
Historical Fiction,
Adult,
Mystery,
Historical Mystery,
Thriller,
Mystery Thriller,
Crime,
Suspense
Murder as a Fine Art, set in 1854 London, features at its center Thomas De Quincey, "The Opium-Eater," the author of the first published drug memoir in English, Memoirs of an Opium Eater, the friend of Wordsworth and Coleridge, and now, late in life, a mass murder suspect. The other characters foc...
Initially, I had quite a bit of trouble getting past the first few chapters of the book, the parts that described a mass murder in gruesome and bloody detail. However, I knew from the synopsis that the fictional occurrence was patterned after a historical case in London, which took place in 1811 (al...
I actually read this some time ago. I remember thinking that I liked the ending. I never guessed who real person was that actually committed the murders. I checked the book out again to refresh my memory before I read the next one.
I first heard about the Ratcliffe Highway murders by reading about them in P.D. James’ The Murder Room. I eventually read the book she co-authored about the murders (which is not as good as her fiction), and I picked this up because of the reference to the murders as well as De Quincy. ...
I love the cover of this book! Murder as a Fine Art has been on my "currently reading" shelf for months just so I could admire the cover art. I also love the premise of Thomas De Quincey (the author best known for Confessions of an English Opium Eater) investigating a murder in Victorian London. ...
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