A Gentle Axe

St Petersburg Mysteries Series - Book One

"Exceptionally compelling ... A Gentle Axe has a vast depth of Russian soul; mysterious, compassionate, and utterly irresistible." Alan Furst

St Petersburg in the Winter of 1866. Two frozen bodies are found in Petrovsky Park.

The first - that of a dwarf - has been packed neatly in a suitcase, a deep wound splitting his skull in two. The second body, of a burly peasant, is hanging from a nearby tree, a bloody axe tucked into his belt.

Magistrate Porfiry Petrovich - investigating his first murder case since the homicides recorded in Dostoevsky's 'Crime and Punishment' - suspects the truth may be more complex than others wish him to believe.

Porfiry's investigation leads him from the squalid tenements, brothels and drinking dens of the city's Haymarket district to an altogether more genteel stratum of society.

As he gets deeper and deeper in, the connections between the two spheres begin to multiply, while his anger and his terror mount.

Everyone he meets is hiding secrets. Everywhere he turns, his way is blocked.

Porfiry Petrovich faces his most challenging murder case since the crimes of Raskolnikov in a case with disturbing parallels and even darker implications.

Atmospheric and tense from its dramatic opening to its shocking climax, A Gentle Axe explores the darkest places of the human heart with tremendous energy, empathy and wit.

Recommended for fans of Alan Furst, CJ Sansom and Boris Akunin.

R. N. Morris is the author of the Porfiry Petrovich series of historical crime novels, featuring the investigating magistrate from Dostoevsky's masterpiece Crime and Punishment. He has also written six novels set in London in 1914: Summon Up The Blood, The Mannequin House, A Dark Palace, The White Feather Killer and The Music Box Enigma. His latest novel is Fortune's Hand, a novel about Walter Raleigh.

Praise for Roger Morris:

"An extraordinary excursion into the past by a master storyteller. I have never read a book quite like it, nor admired a book so much." Michael Gregorio

"Morris' recreation of the seamy side of 19th-century St Petersburg is vivid and convincing ... As to who did it, Morris keeps the reader guessing until the end." The Independent

"Morris has created an atmospheric St Petersburg, and a stylish set of intellectual problems, but what makes A Gentle Axe such an effective debut is its fascination with good and evil." Times Literary Supplement

"As fans of Morris's previous A Gentle Axe will know, this author not only has the nerve to lift his lead character from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment but also the skill to bring that distant Russia and its inhabitants to life, while drawing parallels with our own world." The Guardian

"The streets of St Petersburg are vividly portrayed as the author shows the imperial Russian capital on the brink of upheaval... If you like historical crime novels, you will enjoy this." Historical Novels Review

"Morris's descriptions of the horrors of insanitary slum dwellings in St Petersburg are extraordinarily vivid, but the most striking feature of the novel is the way in which Porfiry's sophisticated understanding of human nature compensates for the limited investigatory tools at his disposal." The Times

"... a book that satisfies on more than one level - as a story of investigation and also as a historical novel crammed with sharply individualised characters." Andrew Taylor in the Spectator