Review: A Vengeful Longing, R. N. Morris

Farber and Farber, 2009. ISBN 978-0-571-23955-9. 316 pages.

This is the second of the Porfiry Petrovich series which features characters drawn from Dosteovsky's Crime and Punishment. The first is A Gentle Axe reviewed by me here.

A Vengeful Longing opens with the painful poisoning death of a doctor's wife and son. The poison was in chocolates brought home by the doctor who gave them to his family. The doctor is the obvious suspect. In a loveless marriage with a disabled son, the doctor had motive, means, and opportunity. However, investigating magistrate Porfiry Petrovich isn't satisfied with the obvious. With more bodies appearing, Petrovich begins to see a pattern though the cause of death is different in each case.

Like A Gentle Axe, A Vengeful Longing is a very satisfying mystery and the series has become a "can barely wait for the next one to be published" favorite of mine. The third book is called A Razor Wrapped in Silk, by the way, and is somewhere in the editing process.

The character Petrovich becomes more interesting with each book. Here he has a acquired a trainee investigating magistrate Pavel Pavlovich Virginisky who we met in the first book when he was an impoverished student and potential murder suspect. In training Virginisky how to construct a watertight case we begin to see better how Petrovich views evidence and how he uses his psychology to test suspects. There is also humor as Petrovich seems to take a untenable position in order to get his apprentice to see all aspects of a case.

The city of St. Petersburg continues to be a character in the story and Petrovich loves his city is spite of its faults. It was winter inA Gentle Axe Now it is summer and we get a different aspect of of the city. The lack of sanitation and the effects on the lower classes are vividly described. We should be thankful that Morris can't incorporate smell into his text. This level of historical detail is one of the features that makes this series interesting. The issue of sanitation is also used to give us a look at the complexities of Tsarist bureaucracy.

A Vengeful Longing is an excellent historical mystery with interesting characters on both sides of the law, a complex mystery, and a fascinating setting. I recommend it highly.

Review: The Gentle Axe, R. N. Morris

Penguin Books, 2008. ISBN 978-0-14-311326-3 (pbk.). 305 pages.

The Gentle Axe is historical crime fiction set in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1866. It's roots, though, are a year and a half earlier in another book by a different author, Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Morris has taken Porfiry Petrovich, the investigating magistrate, as his central character. Also coming over from Crime and Punishment are Nikodim Fromich, the chief of police, Zamyotov, the head clerk, and Ilya Petrovitch Salytov, the hostile, aggressive, police lieutenant.

The beginning is a pretty effective hook. It is winter and an old woman looking for wood in a park finds a large man dead and hanging from a birch tree. Nearby, nearly covered in snow, is a suitcase containing a dead dwarf who apparently suffered a fatal head wound from the bloody axe in the belt of the hanged man. Zoya, the old woman, loots the bodies, finding a substantial amount of money which she takes home to her surrogate daughter Lilya. Though a prostitute, Lilya has a better sense of right an wrong than Zoya and sends an anonymous note to the police telling them where to find the bodies.

Petrovich is not convinced that this is the murder-suicide it appears to be and is determined to find the truth despite the opposition of his superiors.

This is the first book I've finished in 2009 and I'm happy that the year began with such a good read. The Gentle Axe is well paced and intricately plotted without dragging or becoming convoluted to the point of distraction. The reader expects a lot from a book that opens with a dead dwarf in a suitcase in the snow and Morris keeps the story moving and the reader's interest with the introduction of additional plot lines that begin to weave together. Petrovich is a marvelous character and Morris has done well in staying true to Dostoevsky's portrayal but developing his distinct personality and investigative techniques.

St. Petersburg itself becomes a character as well. Morris does a remarkable job describing the evirons of the city in vivid detail. The degraded living conditions of the poorer elements of St. Petersburg might remind you of the writings of Charles Dickens.

The Gentle Axe is an excellent read presenting interesting historical detail, well drawn characters, and a compelling mystery. I recommend it highly.