Mar 11, 2013

Spotlight: David Morrell's "Murder as a Fine Art"

Murder as a Fine Art



I must start this post off with the fact that David Morrell is a fine gentleman.  A gentleman that is very approachable and likeable.  He is genuinely a nice person.



David has an upcoming novel "Murder as a Fine Art"
I asked David if he had anything he wished to say about his new novel.
In his own words:


Three years ago, I watched a film about the nervous breakdown that Charles Darwin suffered when he was writing On the Origin of Species. The movie is called Creation, and I was fascinated when a character made a passing reference to someone named Thomas De Quincey, who (the character said) believed that we were controlled by elements in our minds that we don't understand. 

This sounded like what Freud believed, but Freud published a half century later. Curious, I remembered reading a few essays by De Quincey when I was in college. The professor treated him like a footnote. But as I read more and more about De Quincey, I was stunned by his influence. In addition to anticipating Freud by many years, De Quincey invented the word "subconscious." He was the first person to write about drug addiction in his infamous Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. He invented the true-crime genre. He inspired Edgar Allan Poe, who in turn inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to create Sherlock Holmes. 

De Quincey was at the start of so many things, including thrillers, that I couldn't resist making him the main character of my new thriller, Murder as a Fine Art, which deals with a series of real-life mass murders in London in the 1800s. They were called the Ratcliffe Highway murders. In the east end of London, 4 people were killed in one event. Twelve days later, 3 people were killed in another event. Perhaps there were mass murders before then, but these were the first to be publicized. Improved roads and the newly invented mail-coach system spread word of the murders throughout England in two days and paralyzed the nation. 

De Quincey was obsessed about these murders. I couldn't resist using his obsession as the basis for a novel. Murder as a Fine Art comes out on May 7. It required two years of research to make readers believe that they were truly in Victorian London.  The compelling story has a lot of information embedded in it. For example, how much did a middle-or-upper-class woman's clothes weigh?  Thirty-seven pounds because ten yards of ruffled satin were required to cover a dress that was supported by a wide hoop of whale's teeth.



Hibiscus House has done another Spotlight Story on The Father of Rambo before and you may click Here to read that.



If you would like to visit David's Facebook Page, please tell him Dolly sent you click HERE

There you will find his website links and all types of information.

Thank you very much David Morrell!


Dolly   

5 comments:

  1. That sounds like it is going to be a REALLY GOOD book! xo Diana

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  2. Sounds like a great book . I will have to keep an eye out for it ! I love books of Victorian stories especially British ones as well as TV shows and movies . Thanks for sharing this . Have a good day !

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  3. Can't wait to get my hands on a copy. Hope it makes it up her eto Canada.

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  4. Hello Dolly...(I just couldn't resist! ;)
    I love a good mystery and especially one set in England. I think this might be one that I read when my husband is here and not away. I listened to the trailer and it looks riveting!
    Thanks for sharing.
    Blessings,
    Carolynn

    I just came over from Deb's and wanted to respond to your Apron Giveaway. A lady can never have too many aprons. Your dishcloths are charming and remind me of my Gramma. I lived in the southeast and grew so accustomed to the fond name for Grandmother..."Me Maw". My favorite quilt shop was "Mammaw's Thimble" in Knoxville, Tennessee.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you and you are entered to win the apron here please be sure to go to the other blogs to enter Dandelion House and My Simple Country Living...

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