R.N.Morris

Guest: Author, R.N. Morris. A Vengeful Longing follows A Gentle Axe in a series of St. Petersburg novels revolving around the character of Porfiry Petrovich. Taking Comfort was published by Macmillan under the name Roger Morris in 2006.

Website: http://rogersplog.blogspot.com/

A Gentle Axe by R.N.Morris

St Petersburg in the winter of 1866.Two frozen bodies are found in Petrovsky Park - a dwarf neatly packed in a suitcase, and a burly peasant hanging from a tree. Police Detective Porfiry Petrovich begins his investigation in the city's squalid brothels and drinking dens but is soon led into an altogether more genteel stratum of society - and to a shocking discovery which reveals the darkest reserves of the Russian soul.

A Vengeful Longing by R.N.Morris

A Vengeful Longing is the sequel to the highly acclaimed A Gentle Axe, once again featuring the brilliant detective Porfiry Petrovich from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment in another gripping, atmospheric murder story.

It is the middle of a hot, dusty St Petersburg summer in the late 1860s. A doctor's wife and son die suddenly - and in excruciating pain. The doctor is arrested, suspected of poisoning. As investigator Porfiry Petrovich concedes, in such cases the obvious solution often turns out to be the correct one. And in the city's stifling, stinking atmosphere, even he lacks the energy to look any deeper. But when further (and apparently unconnected) murders occur, something like a pattern seems to emerge. Porfiry is forced to reassess his assumptions and follow a tenuous, uncertain trail that takes him into the hidden, squalid heart of the city and brings him face to face with incomprehensible horror and cruelty.

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

When brutal landowner Fyodor Karamazov is murdered, the lives of his sons are changed irrevocably: Mitya, the sensualist, whose bitter rivalry with his father immediately places him under suspicion for parricide; Ivan, the intellectual, whose mental tortures drive him to breakdown; the spiritual Alyosha, who tries to heal the family's rifts; and the shadowy figure of their bastard half-brother Smerdyakov. As the ensuing investigation and trial reveal the true identity of the murderer, Dostoyevsky's dark masterpiece evokes a world where the lines between innocence and corruption, good and evil, blur and everyone's faith in humanity is tested.

The Eternal Husband by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Velchaninov, a rich and idle man undergoing a moral crisis, is confronted in St Petersburg by Trusotsky, the loyal husband of Velchaninov's former lover. Trusotsky informs Velchaninov that his wife has died, and from here this fascinating novella charts the development of the two men's lives. "An Eternal Husband" beautifully portrays the confused and changing feelings the two men have for one another, moving through guilt, hatred and love. This is Dostoevsky at his best, engaging with his favoured themes of tortured minds and neurosis, and treating them in a captivating and highly revealing way.

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan

On a chilly February day two old friends meet in the throng outside a crematorium to pay their last respects to Molly Lane. Both Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday had been Molly's lovers in the days before they reached their current eminence, Clive as Britain's most successful modern composer, Vernon as editor of the quality broadsheet, "The Judge". Gorgeous, feisty Molly had other lovers too, notably Julian Garmony, Foreign Secretary, a notorious right-winger tipped to be the next prime minister. In the days that follow Molly's funeral, Clive and Vernon will make a pact that will have consequences neither has foreseen. Each will make a disastrous moral decision, their friendship will be tested to its limits and Julian Garmony will be fighting for his political life. A contemporary morality tale that is as profound as it is witty, this short novel is perhaps the most purely enjoyable fiction Ian McEwan has ever written. And why Amsterdam? What happens there to Clive and Vernon is the most delicious shock in a novel brimming with surprises.

White Noise by Don Dellilo

Set at a bucolic midwestern college, White Noise follows a year in the life of Jack Gladney, a professor who has made his name by pioneering the field of Hitler Studies (though he doesn't speak German). He has been married five times to four women and has a brood of children and stepchildren with his current wife, Babette. The first part of White Noise, called "Waves and Radiation," is a chronicle of absurdist family life combined with academic satire.

In the book's second part, a chemical spill from a rail car releases an "airborne toxic event" over Jack's home region, prompting an evacuation. Frightened by his exposure to the toxin, Gladney is forced to confront his mortality. Ironically, in part three of the book, Gladney realizes that his wife has been cheating on him in order to gain access to a drug called Dylar, an experimental treatment for the fear of death. Soon the novel becomes a meditation on modern society's fear of death and its obsession with chemical cures as Gladney seeks to obtain his own black market supply of Dylar.

Coming up next week, Author Kevin Lewis to talk about his latest Fallen Angels.