Murder as a Fine Art
David Morrell, 2013
Mulholland Books
358 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316216791
Summary
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 "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. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 24, 1943
• Where—Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
• Education—B.A., St. Jerome's University; M.A., Ph.D.,
University of Pennsylvania
• Awards—Thrill Master Award from International Thriller
Writers
• Currently—lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
David Morrell is a Canadian-American novelist, 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 also wrote the 2007-2008 Captain America comic book miniseries, The Chosen.
Early life and career
Morrell decided to become a writer at the age of 17, after being inspired by the writing in the classic television series Route 66. In 1966, Morrell received his B.A. in English from and moved to the United States to study with Hemingway scholar Philip Young at Pennsylvania State University, where he would eventually receive his M.A. and Ph.D. in American literature. During his time at Penn State he also met science fiction writer Philip Klass, better known by the pseudonym William Tenn, who taught the basics of writing fiction.
Morrell began work as an English professor at the University of Iowa in 1970. In 1972, his novel First Blood was published; it would eventually be made into the 1982 film of the same name starring Sylvester Stallone as Vietnam veteran John Rambo. Morrell continued to write many other novels, including The Brotherhood of the Rose, the first in a trilogy of novels, which was adapted into a 1989 NBC miniseries starring Robert Mitchum. Eventually tiring of the two professions, he gave up his tenure at the university in 1986 in order to write full time.
Morrell's teenaged son Matthew died of Ewing's Sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer in 1987. The trauma of his loss influenced Morrell's work, in particular in his creative fiction memoir about Matthew, Fireflies. The protagonist of Morrell's novel Desperate Measures also experiences the loss of a son.
Memberships
Morrell is the co-president of the International Thriller Writers organization from which he was presented with the 2009 ThrillerMaster Award. He is a graduate of the National Outdoor Leadership School for wilderness survival as well as the G. Gordon Liddy Academy of Corporate Security. He is also an honorary lifetime member of the Special Operations Association and the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.
According to his website, he has been trained in firearms, hostage negotiation, assuming identities, executive protection, and anti-terrorist driving, among numerous other action skills that he describes in his novels. He recently received his FAA licence to pilot his own small plane.
Morrell lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 05/13/2013.)
Book Reviews
As might be expected from the creator of Rambo, Morrell writes action scenes like nobody's business.
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times
[Morrell's] 26th [novel] and surely one of his best—introduces a new hero.... He’s the real-life writer Thomas De Quincey, best remembered for Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, who, as this story unfolds in 1854, is 69 years old, five feet tall, frail and hopelessly addicted to the opium-based drink laudanum—yet able enough to use his intellectual powers to lead the search for a serial killer who fancies himself an artist.... Murder as a Fine Art may or may not be fine art, but it's an inspired blend of innovation, history and gore. Murder is rarely this much fun.
Patrick Anderson - Washington Post
The drama feels shockingly real because Morrell’s thorough and erudite research of the people and culture of the British Empire’s heyday informs every page of the novel.
Associated Press
(Starred review.) A killer copying the brutal 1811 Ratcliffe Highway murders terrorizes 1854 London in this brilliant crime thriller from Morrell. The earlier slaughters, attributed to a John Williams, were the subject of a controversial essay by Thomas De Quincey entitled “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts.” ... The similarities send the police after De Quincey, who, aided by his able daughter Emily, must vindicate himself and catch the killer.... [A]n epitome of the intelligent page-turner.
Publishers Weekly
Three sleuths...hunt for a killer who has replicated a pair of 40-year-old massacres.... Verdict: Morrell hooks the reader early and moves the action along swiftly. He also effectively captures a long-gone London and details how the city was changing as it moved into the industrial age. This diverting thriller will please the many readers who enjoy historical crime fiction. —David Keymer, Modesto, CA
Library Journal
In 1854, a series of senseless killings in London so closely echo the literary work of [real-life] Thomas De Quincey that he becomes the principal suspect.... De Quincey is quite convincing, but most of his other characters lack the same depth.... In trying too hard to bring certain threads full circle, the book's climax comes across as a bit contrived. But the charming central conceit—a laudanum-chugging De Quincy chasing a killer through fog-shrouded Victorian London—goes a long way toward making up for the novel's glaring shortcomings, as do several tense, well-paced action sequences.
Kirkus Reviews
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