Inspector of the Dead – David Morrell and 1855 London Perfect Together!
David Morrell has been a top mystery and thriller author since his debut novel First Blood released in 1971, introduced the world to John Rambo! I have enjoyed Morrell’s books since 1984’s release The Brotherhood of the Rose. All total Morrell has written twenty-eight novels, and his work has been translated into twenty-six languages While I have enjoyed Morrell’s books through the years, I never thought that any of them were as good as The Brotherhood of the Rose or the novels that followed like The Fraternity of the Stone and The League of Night and Fog, that is until 2013 and the release of Murder As A Fine Art. Murder As a Fine Art was a wonderful historical murder mystery set in 1850s London featuring Thomas De Quincey, known as The Opium-Eater and author of an essay titled “On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts” and his daughter Emily. In March of 2015 the second book in the series Inspector of the Dead was released and this week it became the 24th book I’ve read in 2015 and one of my favorites of the year!
The beginning of Inspector of the Dead finds De Quincey and his daughter still in London following the events of Murder as a Fine Art. While attending church on a Sunday morning they are present when the body of Lady Cosgrove is discovered with her throat slashed! In her hand is a note with the name Young London on it. Soon after her husband and her family’s servants are found murdered in their home with a note that held the name Edward Oxford.Both names were associated with past attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria! Soon other members of the aristocracy are murdered in very public places cards with names of past men who have tried to kill the queen! As De Quincey and Scotland Yard detectives gather clues to help solve the crimes it appears that the ultimate target of the killer may be the Queen!!
Bottom Line: Inspector of the Dead is definitely a 4 to 5 star book for me. The pages just flew by and I literally couldn’t put the book down. Morrell has done a terrific job of creating incredible characters in De Quincey and his daughter Emily, as well as the rest of the cast. In addition Morrell’s writing vividly creates a London in a turbulent time. The Crimean War was not going well. and the government has collapsed leaving the country without a Prime Minister! In my mind Morrell has also made a brutal murderer a sympathetic character and while you can not forgive the killer for what they did, you can understand how they were driven to it! So Check It Out!