So I read things a bit out of order...this guy is actually the precursor to Inspector of the Dead but I was unaware there was a series until after I read the second book, first. Honestly, that's not important though. You don't really need the first book in order to understand the second on. Anyway, I enjoyed Inspector of the Dead so thoroughly that I knew I needed to go back and read the first. David Morrell definitely does not disappoint. Now, it took me a while to get through this book NOT because of the book but because work kind of took over my life. After working at least 10 hours a day for weeks, I honestly would just come home and sit so not a lot of reading was accomplished. Moving on...
Murder as a Fine Art opens in Victorian London with the perspective of the 'artist'. We travel with him on his journey as he murders a shop owner, his wife, the servant girl, the young daughter, and the baby...yes...baby. If you're super squeamish, you won't make it through some bits and pieces of the book. We learn that this murder parallels a murder that occurred 43 years before and became notoriously known as the Ratcliffe Highway Murders. I absolutely LOVE how Morrell takes factual events in history and melds them with fiction to produce this fantastic literature without compromising the events. In reality, a family was murdered in a shop and a few days later, a tavern keeper and his family were murdered. In Murder as a Fine Art, more people are killed; first with the family and then with a whole slew of people at a tavern. The 'artist' takes it up a notch from what happened 43 years prior.
Following the murder, Detective Inspector Sean Ryan is on the case, along with Constable Joseph Becker. They begin some honest police work looking for clues, finding shoe prints and actually making casts (the forensic scientist in me squealed with glee during that part), and trying to find witnesses who may have seen anything out of the ordinary. Eventually, the city is in such a panic because it would appear no one was safe. During their investigation, Ryan and Becker stumble upon Thomas De Quincey, the 'Opium-Eater', who wrote very detailed works on the original Ratcliffe Highway Murders. Immediately, De Quincey becomes a suspect simply based on how much knowledge he seems to know about the original murders. After meeting De Quincey, Ryan and Becker realize there is no way this 70 year old man with an opium addiction could have slaughtered these people; but they do realize he could be a very valuable asset. De Quincey, despite his heavy laudanum use, is really quite brilliant and has a perspective that most people do not. De Quincey is able to study the crime scenes and essentially develop a profile of the killer.
At the same time Becker and Ryan are trying to work with De Quincey, the Home Secretary Lord Palmerston wants De Quincey arrested simply so the people will believe the killer is behind bars and peace will resume. Lord Palmerston apparently has more power than Queen Victoria herself so he orders De Quincey locked up Coldbath Fields Prison. When he is locked up, a man working with the 'artist' calls in a favor to have the food in the prison laced with sleeping medicine so everyone will be asleep while the accomplice attempts to kill De Quincey. Seriously, the 'artist' has a hard on for killing De Quincey. The assassination attempt fails and instead the would be assassin is killed. Also while De Quincey is locked up, an assassination attempt is made on Lord Palmerston, but lucky for him he has a military war hero Colonel Brookline as his personal security detail.
Against the wishes of Lord Palmerston, Ryan and Becker continue to work with De Quincey after he breaks free when Brookline and Palmerston try to imprison him again. It is around this time that De Quincey has figured out who the killer is. De Quincey used to live on the streets of London in his younger days so he knows how the beggars work and he knows how to use favors. It is with this experience he remains undetected so he may work with Ryan and Becker to catch the killer. It is while De Quincey is in the underground of London with the dregs of society that a woman named Margaret comes into the police station wanting to speak to Ryan about the original murders of 43 years before. She reveals her history to Emily, De Quincey's daughter. Forty three years before, Margaret worked at a linen shop with a douche bag for a boss. He rarely let her have a day off but on one of those days off, she met a man named John Williams. They did the horizontal polka and she became pregnant. Her boss was pissed because how could take care of his children if she was pregnant with one of her own??!! She expressed to John that she would be fired soon which pissed John off. When she was out on an errand, John confronted her boss, Mr. Marr, which became heated and out of control. The end results was the murder of the shop owner and his family. When Margaret found out what happened, she wanted nothing to do with John Williams which led him to commit murder days later. John Williams was caught and hanged. Margaret had the child but he took the name of a former soldier she met and lived with. The former soldier's name....was
BROOKLINE.
DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN!!
Yep...Brookline is the son of John Williams and he lost his fucking mind studying these murders. He read everything about them he could, kept a sketch of John Williams in his pocket until he wore it out and had to get another. Literally, OBSESSED with his father and the murders he committed. He joined the military when he was young and became part of an elite group that worked for the British East India Company trading Opium for other goods. We all know about the Opium Trade and the Opium Wars. It was during his time in India that he developed his hang up with Opium and was made to read Thomas De Quincey's book, Confessions of an Opium Eater. Enter his hang up with De Quincey. Dude is seriously just off balance.
In the end, Brookline dies, De Quincey is free to hang out and help on the next case, and Becker is promoted to a Detective. There are lots of other goodies in this book and a good bit of back story on De Quincey that I have left out. I just love that there's a plot twist that you never see coming and Brookline always seemed like a minor character. He also has a lot of weird things going on that I have left out. He's quite twisted. Kind of throws into question is it nature or nurture that makes us who we are? Did he kill because his father killed? Would he have not done it had he come from a better family? Had his mother actually talked with him about who his father was and what he had done would he have tried to kill her? Would have still killed his kind of step father? Would he have killed all those people 43 years later?
Very well told story by Mr. Morrell! I look forward to the next installment in the series. I'm sure De Quincey will confuse us all to the point we actually understand what he's saying.
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