Review by New York Times Review
Anne Perry has killed off a lot of women in a lot of ways since she began writing her atmospheric mysteries about Thomas Pitt, a detective in late-Victorian London, and his highborn wife, Charlotte. But, strange as it may seem for such an unflinching observer of the criminal justice system, until now Perry hadn't trained her exacting eye on the subject of rape. MIDNIGHT AT MARBLE ARCH (Ballantine, $27) makes up for that lapse with a vengeance. Without losing her grip on the refined language appropriate to the day, Perry has written a sweeping and scandalous exposé of sexual brutality amid the upper classes. When violated women in Victorian novels say their lives are ruined, they aren't being melodramatic. "Many women never get over rape. Can't bear the shame and the horror of it," according to the police surgeon performing an autopsy on the wife of a merchant banker who took a lethal dose of laudanum after being raped and brutally beaten. Not only do the victims feel themselves damaged beyond repair, he explains, but their husbands often blame their wives for provocative behavior - and themselves for failing to protect those living under their care. The stigma is even worse for Angeles Castelbranco, the 16-year-old daughter of the Portuguese ambassador. Experts in the art of reading social cues, Charlotte Pitt and her great-aunt, Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould, are made aware of the young woman's distress simply by noting how she recoils when a young man approaches her at a party. Thomas, who now occupies an exalted position as head of Special Branch, is busy on sensitive matters of security like a possible war with the Boers in southern Africa. So it falls to his friend, Victor Narraway, to continue the investigation when other women of good reputation are violently attacked. Although the subject is strictly taboo in this society, Perry has perfected a delicate touch in approaching the untouchable. Even when dealing with sexual violence, she applies the same nuanced technique that she uses to indicate a woman's age, class and marital status by recording the precise shade of her dress. It's more than a neat trick: it makes readers aware of how the violation of women, those symbols of social stability, can send a modern civilization back to the dark ages. Every narrative tactic that Anne Perry executes with a graceful flick of the wrist, David Morrell attacks with balled fists in MURDER AS A FINE ART (Mulholland/Little, Brown, $25.99), a hot-blooded account of a midVictorian case of multiple murder. In the London of 1854, Inspector Sean Ryan, an Irishman in a city that hates Irish immigrants, knows to hide his flaming red hair under a cap before taking to the unruly streets of the East End to investigate the killings of a shopkeeper and his entire household. The forensic science of the day may be primitive, but Ryan can see the similarities between these carefully staged slaughters and the horrific Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811 - a domestic massacre luridly detailed in a contentious work, "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts," by the infamous opiumeater Thomas De Quincey. And wouldn't you know, De Quincey just happens to be in town. Morrell's style takes some getting used to, since he keeps switching time frames and points of view and dropping bits of background (like a lovely little lecture on laudanum) into the narrative. But, as might be expected from the creator of Rambo, Morrell writes action scenes like nobody's business. And that can be a kind of gift when you have the urge to step out of the drawing room and into a rat-infested alley. A good storyteller - and R. B. Chesterton is quite a good storyteller - knows to lower her voice when she's talking about ghosts. This author (who writes cozy mysteries under her real name, Carolyn Haines) reaches into the grave for the sepulchral tone in which she narrates THE DARKLING (Pegasus Crime, $24.95), a moody tale about a sad town that comes to grief trying to relive its glittering past. During the 1940s, movie stars flocked to Coden, Ala., "where pleasure and vice could be indulged" in peace and for a price at the Paradise Inn. But by 1974, the pretty people are gone, the hotel is boarded up, and the locals have linked their dreams for the town's rebirth to the Hendersons, a golden couple with three golden children. Having restored a grand house and raised hopes they might rescue the Paradise Inn, these California transplants spread more sunshine by taking in a homeless teenager and hiring a live-in tutor. That's how Marie Bosarge ("You can call me Mimi"), the 21-year-old narrator, comes to witness the mysterious events in this spellbinding tale, offering eloquent evidence that Southern storytelling is indeed a very special art form. Even writers who have found their groove like to refresh themselves and their sleuths. Jon Taiton started the process when he arranged for his Phoenix sheriff, Mike Peralta, to be voted out of office, making things considerably tougher for his series hero, David Mapstone, the sheriff's deputy. In THE NIGHT DETECTIVES (Poisoned Pen, $24.95) Mapstone and Peralta have gone into business as private detectives, and their first case sends Mapstone to San Diego to investigate the death of a young woman whose thuggish "brother" isn't happy with the official suicide verdict. The case itself is only mildly interesting, but the trip drags Mapstone out of his slump, gives his marriage a boost and gets the new partnership off to a flying start. In Anne Perry's latest Victorian mystery, women of good reputation are being violently attacked.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [May 5, 2013]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* At the start of this exceptional historical mystery, an artist of death prepares himself for his greatest creation the gruesome slaughter of a young shop owner and his family. In 1854, East Londoners hadn't seen such horrific murders since 1851, when John Williams also killed a shopkeeper and his family in a nearby neighborhood. The new crime finds Detective Inspector Shawn Ryan at the grisly, chaotic crime scene, where evidence is trampled as the killer blithely escapes. Visiting London at the time, for reasons he can't fully understand, is Thomas De Quincey, scandalous opium eater and author of the 1827 satirical essay, On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts, and two newer essays in which he lauds various horrific details of the Williams killings as sublime art. DI Ryan initially treats the drug-riddled, elderly writer as a suspect but eventually accepts his help, if grudgingly. Military-thriller writer Morrell switches genres here in a riveting novel packed with edifying historical minutiae seamlessly inserted into a story narrated in part by De Quincey's daughter and partly in revealing, dialogue-rich prose. The page-flipping action, taut atmosphere, and multifaceted characters will remind readers of D. E. Meredith's Hatton and Roumonde mysteries and Kenneth Cameron's The Frightened Man (2009). Sure to be a hit with the gaslight crowd.--Baker, Jen Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A killer copying the brutal 1811 Ratcliffe Highway murders terrorizes 1854 London in this brilliant crime thriller from Morrell (First Blood). 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." A man who considers himself an "artist of death" duplicates the first set of Williams's killings by using a mallet and a knife to dispatch a shopkeeper, his wife, their two children (including an infant), and a servant. The similarities send the police after De Quincey, who, aided by his able daughter Emily, must vindicate himself and catch the killer. Morrell tosses in the political machinations of Lord Palmerston, then Home Secretary, who has been promoting revolution in Europe to assure Great Britain's political dominance. Everything works-the horrifying depiction of the murders, the asides explaining the impact of train travel on English society, nail-biting action sequences-making this book an epitome of the intelligent page-turner. Agent: Jane Dystel, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Notorious opium addict and memoirist Thomas De Quincy is a suspect in a series of ghastly murders terrorizing 19th-century London. With the assistance of his bright daughter Emily and determined Scotland Yard detectives, De Quincy must stop a killer who bases his crimes on notorious cases. Verdict Winner of the Reading List Award for Best Mystery, this expertly plotted page-turner is packed with tense action and diverting historical minutia. (LJ 12/12) © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
In 1854, a series of senseless killings in London so closely echo the literary work of Thomas De Quincey that he becomes the principal suspect. Writer Thomas De Quincey, best known for Confessions of an English Opium Eater, his frank memoir of his experiences with opium, also published a satirical essay entitled "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts," in which he describes in appreciative detail the early-19th-century Ratcliffe Highway murders. While he's in London on a promotional tour, accompanied by his outspoken daughter, Emily, someone re-creates the Ratcliffe murders in a way that suggests the killer may be using De Quincey's piece as a blueprint. De Quincey falls under suspicion and must use his extensive knowledge of the nature of violence and regret, and his pre-Freudian theories of the subconscious, as well as his resourceful daughter and two policeman who believe in his innocence, to catch and stop the true killer, all while dealing with his crippling opium addiction. Meanwhile, the ongoing murder spree spreads increasing terror throughout London, putting the entire empire at risk. Morrell (First Blood, 1971, etc.) fills his work with extensive detail on life in London in 1854, usually in service to his story but sometimes in a gratuitous fashion. His De Quincey is quite convincing, but most of his other characters lack the same depth. Some sections are oddly and distractingly repetitive--for instance, the reader is given a detailed introduction at two different points in the novel to the real-life Dr. John Snow, who traced a cholera epidemic to a contaminated water source. 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. Fans of Victorian and/or quirky mysteries will find much to enjoy and will likely be willing to forgive the book's substantial flaws.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
