A new direction for beloved novelist David Morrell: a historical thriller with literary roots.

Thomas De Quincey, best known for his sensational memoir Confessions of an Opium Eater, is the prime suspect in a series of horrific murders that paralyze London.

The killer seems to be imitating De Quincey’s true-crime essay ”On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts.” Desperate to prevent more atrocities but crippled by opium addiction, De Quincey is aided by his brilliant daughter, Emily, as well as two determined Scotland Yard detectives.

MURDER AS A FINE ART recreates gaslit London as a battleground between a literary luminary and a master killer whose secrets are deeply entwined with De Quincey’s own, in a riveting thriller along the lines of Dan Simmons’ Drood, Matthew Pearl’s The Dante Club, and Caleb Carr’s The Alienist.