Imprint
- Mulholland Books
Victorian De Quincey mys, Fiction, Historical mysteries, Thriller / suspense
A short story in David Morrell's Thomas De Quincey mystery series: the notorious Opium-Eater recalls a dark tale of death in the Lake District.
From bestselling thriller author David Morrell comes a brooding tale about the coldest of deaths and their heartbreaking aftermath.
Thomas De Quincey - the central character of Morrell's acclaimed Victorian mysteries, MURDER AS A FINE ART and INSPECTOR OF THE DEAD - was one of the most notorious and brilliant literary personalities of the 1800s. His infamous Confessions of an English Opium-Eater made history as the first book about drug dependency. He invented the word 'subconscious' and anticipated Freud's psychoanalytic theories by more than a half century. His blood-soaked essays and stories influenced Edgar Allan Poe, who in turn inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to create Sherlock Holmes.
But at the core of it all was a terrible tragedy. In this special-edition novella, based on real-life events, De Quincey shares the story of a horrific snowstorm fifty years earlier, in which a mother and father died and their six children were trapped in the mountains of the Lake District. Even more gripping is what happened after. This is the true tale of how De Quincey became the Opium-Eater, brought to life by an award-winning storyteller.
An afterword contains photos of the dramatic locations in the story.
Praise for The Opium-Eater
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Praise for MURDER AS A FINE ART - .
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A gaslit gallop through Victorian London - Financial Times
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A terrific read. As one would expect of Morrell, it is compulsive and thrilling, but its use of de Quincey also allows for discursions that are both funny and touching - de Quincey and his daughter are great additions to the detective stage, and I hope we will have a lot more of them to come.
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[An] exceptional historical mystery...page-flipping action, taut atmosphere, and multifaceted characters - Booklist
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Shockingly real...Morrell's thorough and erudite research of the people and culture of the British Empire's heyday informs every page. A literary thriller that pushes the envelope of fear - Associated Press
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Masterful...brilliantly plotted....evokes 1854 London with such finesse that you'll hear the hooves clattering on cobblestones - Entertainment Weekly
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Brilliant. 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. - Publishers Weekly
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David Morrell fans - and they are Legion - can look forward to celebrating Murder As a Fine Art as one of their favorite author's strongest and boldest books in years.
David Morrell
David Morrell is one of America's most popular and acclaimed storytellers, with over eighteen million copies of his books in print. His thrillers have been translated into twenty-six languages and turned into record-breaking films as well as top-rated TV miniseries. A former professor of American literature at the University of Iowa, David Morrell now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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