Another in the murder mystery series featuring the historical figures of Thomas De Quincey — the English Opium Eater — and his daughter Emily.
Another strong novel. I recommend it.
The year is 1855. The Crimean War rages. The incompetence of British commanders causes the fall of the government. The Empire teeters. …
This killer targets members of the upper echelons of British society, leaving with each corpse the name of someone who previously attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria. The evidence indicates that the ultimate victim will be Victoria herself. …
Murder As a Fine Art is the first in my three-book Victorian mystery/thriller series. Each novel has a backdrop of a real 1800s crime that paralyzed England …
Long before Jack the Ripper, the shocking Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811 were the first publicized mass killings in English history. Never fully explained, they paralyzed London and all of England.
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Forty-three years later, the equally notorious Thomas De Quincey wrote a ground-breaking essay “Postscript: On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts” in which he meticulously reproduced the Radcliffe highway multiple murders in blood-spattered detail, making readers feel they’re both the murderer and the victims.
In Murder As a Fine Art, shortly after this terror-drenched essay is published, a family is killed in the same horrific way as the earlier murders. It seems someone is using De Quincey’s essay as an inspiration—and a blueprint. And De Quincey himself is the obvious suspect. Aided by his brilliant daughter Emily and two determined Scotland Yard detectives, he must uncover the truth before more blood is shed and London itself becomes the next victim.
Washington Post called this book the “anti-Harry Potter you didn’t know you wanted.”
It is a little bit like Hogworts University … with sex and vodka.
But more than anything else this book is weird. It’s long. And by the end I still had not much idea what was happening to the students at the Institute of Special Technologies.
It seems this is the first book in the Metamorphosis cycle, three unconnected novels addressing themes of transformation.
My first roadblock came right at the beginning of the day. The bridge over the I-90 was out.
Without hopping fences that meant a 6 mile detour. But a detour including coffee and bacon on a stick!
Farm country has a lot of fences. And other impediments to cycling.
On the other side of the bridge the GART continues on to Army land — Joint Base Lewis McChord. It did not look welcoming. One tunnel MIGHT be closed on that 22 mile section.
I decided, instead, to detour via the I-90 stopping at the Wild Horse Wind and Solar Facility.
The I-90 is not all that bad. It has a very wide shoulder.
Once reaching the gorgeous Columbia River I tried to rejoin the Great American Rail-Trail.
Once again, no go. The bridge over the river was out. 😕
I backtracked again now forced to cross the Columbia on the I-90. Not good. There is no shoulder at all crossing the bridge.
