Ruler of the Night by David Morrell

Ruler of the Night by David Morrell --- 342 pages including Acknowledgements

Ruler of the Night is the final volume in David Morrell's Victorian murder-mystery trilogy featuring Thomas DeQuincey as his gifted amateur sleuth

Like Murder as a Fine Art and Inspector of the Dead — the first two books in the trilogy — Ruler of the Night closely follows the tragic career of the real Thomas DeQuincey a prolific English writer best known today for his battle with opium addiction, as detailed in his memoir, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, published in 1821. Along with his daughter Emily and two (fictional) London detectives, Sean Ryan and Joseph Becker, DeQuincey uses his knowledge of the human condition to solve a series of seemingly senseless and brutal murders, while battling his own addiction to laudanum. And just as in the first two books, Ruler of the Night is also based on a real crime; the first murder to occur on an English train, although, for his own purposes, Morrell has the fictionalized crime occur in 1855, ten years earlier than the actual event.

Because the manners and morals of the Victorian period are so foreign to our own, the research necessary to accurately convey the social and political context that makes the story come alive for modern readers was immense, and yet the telling details are inserted without ever interrupting the rapid flow of the narrative.

DeQuincey is also remembered for his controversial essay, “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts,” the inspiration for the first novel in Morrell's trilogy.

Ruler of the Night even ends with a fictional solution to the mystery that haunted the real DeQuincey's entire life. To fully appreciate what Morrell has achieved here it's best to read the entire trilogy in order. 

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review on the Historical Novel Society web site.

Treachery at Lancaster Gate by Anne Perry

Treachery at Lancaster Gate: A Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Novel by Anne Perry --- 288 pages

Anne Perry is the best-selling author of two Victorian mystery series: one featuring Inspector William Monk and his wife Hester; and the other featuring Inspector Thomas Pitt and his wife Charlotte.

This is the 31st book in the Pitt series, and it is both absorbing and almost chillingly timely, as the story opens with Pitt, now head of Special Branch, standing in the shambles of a bomb explosion in a quiet London neighborhood, with two police officers dead and three more seriously injured --- and anarchists, the real life terrorists of the turn of the last century, are immediately suspected. Perry's book, published last fall, cannot fail to touch a nerve with readers after recent events in Paris and Brussels.

And this is typical of Perry, who has a way of creating stories set within historical events of the last century to cast a light on contemporary concerns such as drug addiction, or the yawning gulf between the wealthy and well-connected and the working class poor. Pitt is shaken when he uncovers evidence that this crime was not the work of anarchists but a desperate attempt to expose corruption within the police that sent an innocent man to the gallows.  As a former police officer himself, Pitt doesn't want to believe it; but when pressure is brought to bear to persuade him to give up his inquiries, it only stiffens his resolve to find the truth. Perry knows how to ratchet up the tension as Pitt and his trusted associates must risk their own lives to prove their case. Many of her books feature riveting courtroom battles, and Treachery at Lancaster Gate ends with a whopper. This is one more Perry book that, once started, I could not put down until the last sentence.

Click HERE for a review from the Yorkshire Evening Post.

Click HERE for a review from the Book Reporter.

Murder as a Fine Art by David Morrell

Murder as a Fine Art by David Morrell --- 358 pages

David Morrell got his start with the series of novels he wrote about a traumatized Vietnam war veteran which became the basis of the Rambo films starring Sylvester Stallone.

But he's gone on to write a number of tauntly plotted suspense thrillers incorporating historical people and events, of which this is the latest and one of the best.  Although his prose may be clunky, his characterizations of both real and imagined characters are compelling, and he deftly weaves any number of real events, persons and places into his tale.

It is 1854 and London, the capital of the British Empire, is the home of  the richest and most powerful men in the world. Much of the Empire's power however comes from the British East India Company's opium trade, which has destroyed the lives of millions of people at home and abroad. Thomas de Quincey, the infamous author of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, has been lured to London so he can be framed for a series of brutal murders identical to the infamous Ratcliffe Highway murders that terrorized London in 1811.

De Quincey is suspected because one of his most controversial essays, "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts," discusses the Ratcliffe Highway murders in great detail --- the very same horrific details that have been meticulously recreated in the new attacks. In order to prove his own innocence, de Quincey must insinuate himself into the police investigation, all the while fighting the debilitating effects of his own opium addiction. He learns that he and the murderer are linked by secrets long buried but never forgotten.

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