It’s 1854 in London and the night’s calm is shattered by the shouts of murder. A young family has been brutally killed though it does not appear to be a random act but was carefully orchestrated to mirror the Ratcliffe Highway murders of another family forty-three years earlier. Detective Inspector Sean Ryan from Scotland Yard is put on the case and discovers an essay called “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts”, which is a detailed account of the Ratcliffe Highway Murders by author, Thomas De Quincey, who happened to be in town during the current murders.
Quincey is an infamous writer also well known for his memoir, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, and Ryan is anxious to question him regardless of Quincey’s drug induced states. As the case progresses it appears that Quincey is somehow linked to the killings but Ryan isn’t sure if Quincey is a suspect or a victim. In Murder as Fine Art the real life Quincey, the Ratcliffe Highway murders, and Victorian England are woven into a fast paced mystery thriller. The author is the prolific David Morrell who also wrote the bestselling novel First Blood.