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Thomas De Quincey, infamous for his memoir "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater", is the major suspect in a series of ferocious mass murders identical to ones that terrorized London 43 years earlier. The blueprint for the killings seems to be De Quincey's essay "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts". Desperate to clear his name but crippled by opium addiction, De Quincey is aided by his devoted daughter, Emily, and a pair of determined Scotland Yard detectives.
An atmospheric debut novel set on the gritty streets of Victorian London, Some Danger Involved introduces detective Cyrus Barker and his assistant, Thomas Llewelyn, as they work to solve the gruesome murder of a young scholar in London's Jewish ghetto. When the eccentric and enigmatic Barker takes the case, he must hire an assistant, and out of all who answer an ad for a position with "some danger involved", he chooses downtrodden Llewelyn, a gutsy young man with a murky past.
It's 1811, and the threat of revolution haunts the upper classes of King George III's England. Then a beautiful young woman is found savagely murdered on the altar steps of an ancient church near Westminster Abbey. A dueling pistol found at the scene and the damning testimony of a witness both point to one man - Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, a brilliant young nobleman shattered by his experience in the Napoleonic Wars.
Gaius Petrius Ruso is a divorced and down-on-his-luck army doctor who has made the rash decision to seek his fortune in an inclement outpost of the Roman Empire, namely Britannia. After a 36-hour shift at the army hospital, he succumbs to a moment of weakness and rescues an injured slave girl, Tilla, from the hands of her abusive owner. And before he knows it, Ruso is caught in the middle of an investigation into the deaths of prostitutes working out of the local bar.
Victorian London is a cesspool of crime, and Scotland Yard has only 12 detectives - known as “The Murder Squad” - to investigate thousands of murders every month. Created after the Metropolitan Police’s spectacular failure to capture Jack the Ripper, The Murder Squad suffers rampant public contempt. They have failed their citizens. When Walter Day, the squad’s newest hire, is assigned the case of the murdered detective, he finds a strange ally in the Yard’s first forensic pathologist, Dr. Bernard Kingsley.
The Earl of Wrexford possesses a brilliant scientific mind, but boredom and pride lead him to reckless behavior. He does not suffer fools gladly. So when pompous, pious Reverend Josiah Holworthy publicly condemns him for debauchery, Wrexford unsheathes his rapier-sharp wit and strikes back. As their war of words escalates, London's most popular satirical cartoonist, A. J. Quill, skewers them both.
Thomas De Quincey, infamous for his memoir "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater", is the major suspect in a series of ferocious mass murders identical to ones that terrorized London 43 years earlier. The blueprint for the killings seems to be De Quincey's essay "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts". Desperate to clear his name but crippled by opium addiction, De Quincey is aided by his devoted daughter, Emily, and a pair of determined Scotland Yard detectives.
An atmospheric debut novel set on the gritty streets of Victorian London, Some Danger Involved introduces detective Cyrus Barker and his assistant, Thomas Llewelyn, as they work to solve the gruesome murder of a young scholar in London's Jewish ghetto. When the eccentric and enigmatic Barker takes the case, he must hire an assistant, and out of all who answer an ad for a position with "some danger involved", he chooses downtrodden Llewelyn, a gutsy young man with a murky past.
It's 1811, and the threat of revolution haunts the upper classes of King George III's England. Then a beautiful young woman is found savagely murdered on the altar steps of an ancient church near Westminster Abbey. A dueling pistol found at the scene and the damning testimony of a witness both point to one man - Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, a brilliant young nobleman shattered by his experience in the Napoleonic Wars.
Gaius Petrius Ruso is a divorced and down-on-his-luck army doctor who has made the rash decision to seek his fortune in an inclement outpost of the Roman Empire, namely Britannia. After a 36-hour shift at the army hospital, he succumbs to a moment of weakness and rescues an injured slave girl, Tilla, from the hands of her abusive owner. And before he knows it, Ruso is caught in the middle of an investigation into the deaths of prostitutes working out of the local bar.
Victorian London is a cesspool of crime, and Scotland Yard has only 12 detectives - known as “The Murder Squad” - to investigate thousands of murders every month. Created after the Metropolitan Police’s spectacular failure to capture Jack the Ripper, The Murder Squad suffers rampant public contempt. They have failed their citizens. When Walter Day, the squad’s newest hire, is assigned the case of the murdered detective, he finds a strange ally in the Yard’s first forensic pathologist, Dr. Bernard Kingsley.
The Earl of Wrexford possesses a brilliant scientific mind, but boredom and pride lead him to reckless behavior. He does not suffer fools gladly. So when pompous, pious Reverend Josiah Holworthy publicly condemns him for debauchery, Wrexford unsheathes his rapier-sharp wit and strikes back. As their war of words escalates, London's most popular satirical cartoonist, A. J. Quill, skewers them both.
It is 1845. New York City forms its first police force. The great potato famine hits Ireland. These two seemingly disparate events will change New York City. Forever.... Timothy Wilde tends bar near the Exchange, fantasizing about the day he has enough money to win the girl of his dreams. But when his dreams literally incinerate in a fire devastating downtown Manhattan, he finds himself disfigured, unemployed, and homeless. His older brother obtains Timothy a job in the newly minted NYPD, but he is highly skeptical of this new "police force".
With her inquisitive mind, Charlotte Holmes has never felt comfortable with the demureness expected of the fairer sex in upper-class society. But even she never thought that she would become a social pariah, an outcast fending for herself on the mean streets of London. When the city is struck by a trio of unexpected deaths and suspicion falls on her sister and her father, Charlotte is desperate to find the true culprits and clear the family name.
Breathless and painstakingly researched, this is a stunning debut mystery in which Sherlock Holmes unmasks Jack the Ripper. Lyndsay Faye perfectly captures all the color and syntax of Conan Doyle’s distinctive nineteenth-century London.
The year is 1896, the place, New York City. On a cold March night New York Times reporter John Schuyler Moore is summoned to the East River by his friend and former Harvard classmate Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, a psychologist, or "alienist." On the unfinished Williamsburg Bridge, they view the horribly mutilated body of an adolescent boy, a prostitute from one of Manhattan's infamous brothels.
By Gaslight is a deeply atmospheric, haunting audiobook about the unending quest that has shaped a man's life. William Pinkerton is already famous, the son of the most notorious detective of all time, when he descends into the underworld of Victorian London in pursuit of a new lead on the fabled con Edward Shade. William's father died without ever finding Shade, but William is determined to drag the thief out of the shadows.
When magistrate Patrick Colquhoun orders a habitual thief and ne'er-do-well transported to Botany Bay, he doesn't realize a 14-year-old boy has been left behind to follow in his father's footsteps - not until young John Pickett is hauled into Bow Street for stealing an apple from the produce market at Covent Garden. Feeling to some extent responsible for the boy, Mr. Colquhoun prevails upon Elias Granger, a prosperous coal merchant, to take him on as an apprentice.
Internationally best-selling author Lyndsay Faye became enamored with tales of Sherlock Holmes and his esteemed biographer, Dr. John Watson, as a child and later began spinning these quintessential characters into her own works of fiction - from her acclaimed debut novel, Dust and Shadow, which pitted the famous detective against Jack the Ripper, to a series of short stories for the Strand Magazine, whose predecessor published the very first Sherlock Holmes short story in 1891.
As the city prepares to celebrate Queen Victoria's golden jubilee, Veronica Speedwell is marking a milestone of her own. After burying her spinster aunt, the orphaned Veronica is free to resume her world travels in pursuit of scientific inquiry - and the occasional romantic dalliance. As familiar with hunting butterflies as she is fending off admirers, Veronica wields her butterfly net and a hatpin with equal aplomb, and with her last connection to England gone, she intends to embark upon the journey of a lifetime.
In rural, impoverished Burgoyne County, New York, a pattern of strange deaths begins to emerge: Adolescent boys and girls are found murdered, their corpses left hanging in gruesome, ritualistic fashion. Senior law enforcement officials are quick to blame a serial killer, but their efforts to apprehend this criminal are peculiarly ineffective.
England, 1914. Joanna Blalock's keen mind and incredible insight lead her to become a highly skilled nurse, one of the few professions that allow her to use her finely tuned brain. But when she and her 10-year-old son witness a man fall to his death, apparently by suicide, they are visited by the elderly Dr. John Watson and his charming, handsome son, Dr. John Watson Jr. Impressed by her forensic skills, they invite her to become the third member of their investigative team.
London had Sherlock Holmes. The dark alleys of Edinburgh had Inspector McLevy. Known as the father of forensics and a likely influence on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, real-life police inspector James McLevy is here reinvented by David Ashton in a thrilling mystery - the first in a series - set in dark, violent Victorian Edinburgh.
In June of 1860 three-year-old Saville Kent was found at the bottom of an outdoor privy with his throat slit. The crime horrified all England and led to a national obsession with detection. At the time, the detective was a relatively new invention; there were only eight detectives in all of England and rarely were they called out of London, but this crime was so shocking that Scotland Yard sent its best man to investigate, Inspector Jonathan Whicher.
New York, 1891: a rapidly changing city, torn between lamplight and electric light, where the burgeoning steel and railway industries attract a flood of humanity from every corner of the globe, fuelling cutthroat gangs, corruption and vice. A prostitute is found brutally murdered. Immediately, fear starts to spread. The victim bears the same hallmarks as Jack the Ripper's recent killing spree in England.
Could it be that the Ripper has crossed the Atlantic to fresh killing grounds? Or is this simply a copycat murder? To solve the case, one of the original English Ripper pathologists, Finley Jameson, is teamed up with Joseph Argenti, one of the new 'untouchable' detectives, handpicked by a New York Mayor eager to fight corruption.
I could not resist using an obvious - but nonetheless descriptive - headline. Think Jack the Ripper comes to NYC, complete with abundant gaslight atmosphere, a tightly woven mystery and great narration. If you are looking for one of those perfectly fabulous Victorian-era pieces (the story takes place on both sides of "The Pond"), this book never fails to deliver.
Our hero is an intense chap with a troubled past that leads to a difficult present. As the brilliant criminal forensics analyst, his character is believable, captivating, charming and complex. His side-kick in NYC is a policeman with his own share of challenges. And, let me not forget to mention our protagonist's personal assistant, Lawrence, who is also awash with his own personality issues.
I worked though this 11+ hour novel in two days, I was so entranced with it. This seems as though it is the PERFECT property for a Hollywood option. As you listen, you start to imagine who would be playing the myriad people that populate the story.
In a phrase, "I loved this book!" If you like Anne Perry, Caleb Carr, P.D. James, you would enjoy this author's writing. For a person with a pretty weak stomach, I was able to survive the crime scenes and attendant details without feeling 'icky.' There is a certain degree of creepiness that anchors the story, but it works very well. Would love to see another book featuring these characters.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful
Any additional comments?
I throughly enjoyed this novel - I hope the first of many more novels in this new series … great story, absorbing characters, great pace, phenomenal reader … I haven't enjoyed a novel this much in awhile … this is the first novel I've heard Piers Wehner narrate and it was exceptional - he made it hard to have to turn off my iPod … John Matthews has written two new great historical fiction characters, Finley Jameson & Joseph Argenti, and I look forward to the next adventure! … I highly recommend "Letters from a Murderer"!!!
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
I really enjoyed this novel. It brings the Ripper to the US and you just don't know who it will turn out to be. The author put in multiple red herrings and developed his characters so that you were able to relate to them. You didn't want it to be the main protagonist or several other prominent characters and yet you just don't know for sure until the very end. The narrator was good and added to the overall tale.
One caveat of my review: I love long audible books so I rarely mind a lot of details in my novels.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
What made the experience of listening to Letters from a Murderer the most enjoyable?
Piers Wehner's narration was perfection. Each character's voice was distinct. The novel played out like a radio program from the 1940's. It was a pleasure to listen too.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Letters from a Murderer?
Matthews writing grips you and doesn't let you go until the end. No one is safe from the Ripper. One such scene is when Argenti takes to the sewers following a lead. Its wrought with tension and reminiscent of Gothic horror.
Which scene was your favorite?
The scenes in which Jameson and Ellie interact with each other stood out among the rest. You have a well classed gentleman going out of his way to treat Ellie, a prostitute, as more than just her circumstances. Ellie's quick wit and banter put her as an equal to Jameson, which he finds endearing. I'm curious to see where this relationship goes.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
Lawrence's internment in Bedlam and another such facilities is something you cannot forget. It sticks with you, as Lawrence who is deemed mentally insane, but today would most likely be determined to be autistic. His experiences and his meeting and becoming a ward of Jameson's is touching and powerful. Both characters battle their own personal struggles with different forms of mental illness, and yet where one fails the other is there to give a helping hand.
Any additional comments?
Beware, the murder and autopsy scenes are gritty.
I'm excited about this series. I really liked the two main characters. I've been searching the net looking for the release date of next book. The story got me interested from the start. If you enjoy mystery stories set in the Victorian era this ones for you!
Overall the book is good but not great. It is, however, very poorly written. If you appreciate proper grammar and usage, this book will make you crazy.
The narrator is better than average.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful
Unqestionabley a great story, strong plot' well performed, however there were lapses in sound level on rare occasions but certainly not enough to spoil the story. i kept telling myself this is a story, a fictional work, but it is so well pt together and presented that you will begin to feel that is history. I can only say past reviewers got it right, a story well worth five stars
I enjoy period pieces, especially detective novels. This one did not hold my interest. I read the murder series by David Morrell. If you have any interest in this type of book read Morrell's first and you will see my point.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful
supper interesting. kept my attention throughout. liked both lead characters and tempo of the story. narrator has a nicevoice
0 of 1 people found this review helpful