Fresh off the case of a deranged student who murdered his landlady, noted police investigator Porfiry Petrovich barely takes a breath before a bizarre and very grisly double murder lands him back on the streets of the tsarist St. Petersburg he knows all too well. The sardonic sleuth follows a trail from the drinking dens of the Haymarket district to an altogether more genteel stratum of society-a hunt that leads him to a conclusion even he will find shocking. In the tradition of such first-rate historical novels such as The Alienist and The Dante Club, The Gentle Axe is atmospheric and tense storytelling from its dramatic opening to its stunning climax.
"A satisfyingly grisly yarn, mawkish and macabre. CSI: St. Petersburg"
- The New York Times Book Review
" The Gentle Axe is a deftly plotted, enjoyable literary thriller."
- The Washington Post
"A smart, hypnotizing tale of crime and duplicity. . . . Genuinely pleasurable."
- The New York Sun
"Lush, and exceptionally compelling, but take your time-R. N. Morris's The Gentle Axe has a vast depth of Russian soul: mysterious, compassionate, and utterly irresistible."
-Alan Furst, author of The Foreign Correspondent
"The anti-Sherlock Holmes."
- The Philadelphia Inquirer
- The New York Times Book Review
" The Gentle Axe is a deftly plotted, enjoyable literary thriller."
- The Washington Post
"A smart, hypnotizing tale of crime and duplicity. . . . Genuinely pleasurable."
- The New York Sun
"Lush, and exceptionally compelling, but take your time-R. N. Morris's The Gentle Axe has a vast depth of Russian soul: mysterious, compassionate, and utterly irresistible."
-Alan Furst, author of The Foreign Correspondent
"The anti-Sherlock Holmes."
- The Philadelphia Inquirer