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 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 Story

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!

About David Morrell

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David Morrell – The Mortalist, Frank Balenger, and   Thomas De Quincey series

So back in the 1980s (Ok think about that Edward the 1980s were 35 years ago! Ouch! When you were 14 in 1965 would you have thought about anything that happened in 1930 as anything but ancient history? Nope!) I read a lot of thrillers from the likes of Robert Ludlum, Clive Cussler, Bill Granger (November Man), Richard Hoyt and others. And right up there with the best of them were books from David Morrell. Morrell’s 1972 debut novel was First Blood was adapted into Sylvester Stallone’s movie Rambo.

My three favorite books from David Morrell were The Brotherhood of the Rose, The Fraternity of the Stone and The League of Night and Fog. The sad thing is that aside from the fact that I remember that I really liked the books, I remember little bit about them. I rarely read books a second time but thinking about how much I liked the books starts me thinking may I should read at least The Brotherhood of the Rose again! I do remember that The Brotherhood of the Rose was made into TV a mini-series that I thought starred Richard Chamberlain. In looking it up on IMDb I see that it started Peter Strauss, Robert Mitchum and Connie Sellecca. Richard Chamberlain starred as Jason Bourne in a TV Mini-series based on Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity. I never watched either of the series!

About The Brotherhood of the Rose from Goodreads:

They were orphans, Chris and Saul–raised in a Philadelphia school for boys, bonded by friendship, and devoted to a mysterious man called Eliot. He visited them and brought them candy. He treated them like sons. He trained them to be assassins. Now he is trying desperately to have them killed.

Spanning the globe and full of heart-stopping action, The Brotherhood of the Rose is an astonishing novel of fierce loyalty and violent betrayal, of murders planned and coolly executed, of revenge bitterly, urgently desired. More

Through the years I’ve read several more books by David Morrell and I enjoyed them all but none have even been as good as the three books from above. That is until 2013’s Murder as a Fine Art set in 1850s London Morrell wrote a terrific book using The Opium Eater Thomas De Quincey and his daughter Emily as the lead characters! Read More Here.  The conclusion of that book left me and many other readers clamoring for more! In March Morrell released The Inspector of the Dead making me and others very happy campers!  In this installment De Quincey and Emily are still in London and end up in the midst of a killing spree targeting the aristocrats of London. Cards left by the murderers reference members of Young England that have attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria. Could the queen be the ultimate target?  I just picked up the book on Friday, couldn’t put it down and have already finished it!! The review of the book will be forthcoming. In the meantime here is a list of the other books that I have read from the pen of David Morrell……Check him out!!

* Goodreads – rating is out of 5

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