R. N. Morris | Author

R. N. Morris
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PUBLISHED: Apr.01.2010

A Razor Wrapped in Silk

It's St Petersburg. 1870. A child factory worker is mysteriously abducted. A society beauty is sensationally murdered. Two very different crimes show up the deep fissures in Russian society of the late tsarist period. The first is barely noticed by the authorities. The latter draws the full investigative might of St Petersburg's finest, led by magistrate Porfiry Petrovich. The dead...

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PUBLISHED: May.19.2011

The Cleansing Flames

Easter, 1872. Fires burn in St Petersburg, a prelude to the revolutionary turmoil that will shake Russia a generation later. As the springtime thaw begins, a body rises to the surface of the Winter Canal. Following an anonymous tip-off, magistrate Porfiry Petrovich is drawn into an investigation of the radical intellectuals who seek to fan the flames of revolution. In...

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PUBLISHED: Jan.02.2007

A Gentle Axe

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...

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PUBLISHED:

A Vengeful Longing

Following in the footsteps of the highly acclaimed novel The Gentle Axe, featuring Porfiry Petrovich in another atmospheric and gripping slice of nineteenth-century Russia From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Set in St. Petersburg in 1868, Morris's superb second novel to feature Porfiry Petrovich (after The Gentle Axe) puts the detective borrowed from Dostoyevski's Crime and...

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R. N.'s Latest Blogs

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Apr.23.2012 - 8:35 am

Adventures in e-publishing Part 12 - interview with Matt Curran.

Thirst eDition Fiction is a new e-publishing venture that launches today April 23, with the release of three titles: A Proper Job by Ian Hocking, Dragonchaser by Tim Stretton and...

Apr.19.2012 - 12:57 am

Adventures in e-publishing Part 11 - interview with Richard T. Kelly

Richard T. Kelly is Editor-in-Chief of Faber Finds, the Faber and Faber imprint devoted to rediscovering and re-issuing out of print and often forgotten literary masterpieces...

Apr.19.2012 - 12:55 am

Adventures in e-publishing Part 11 - interview with Richard T. Kelly

Richard T. Kelly is Editor-in-Chief of Faber Finds, the Faber and Faber imprint devoted to rediscovering and re-issuing out of print and often forgotten literary masterpieces....

Feb.24.2012 - 9:29 am

Adventures in e-Publishing Part Two - interview with Lee Jackson

Lee Jackson is the author of a number of fine historical mysteries, including London Dust, A Metropolitan Murder and The Mesmerist’s Apprentice. His most recent novel is The...

Comments from R. N.

May.31.2010 - 3:31 am

In response to: Further thoughts on starting something new

Hi David, thanks for your

Hi David, thanks for your comment. It's interesting that you say the American 'classless society' is a myth. It's an...

May.27.2010 - 1:02 pm

In response to: Thoughts on starting something new

Very good points, Rosy. And

Very good points, Rosy. And all the more reason why writing contemporary is daunting - for me at least! Yes, you have...

Feb.04.2010 - 5:38 am

In response to: Twittering towards the end

Hi Nina, thanks for you

Hi Nina, thanks for you message. Good luck with the writers' conference. Wish I was in SF right now! Helen,...

Feb.02.2010 - 3:32 am

In response to: Twittering towards the end

Thanks Helen. I'm giving

Thanks Helen. I'm giving away free copies on twitter, instead of tweeting the ending! Let's see if I can give away the...

Feb.01.2010 - 9:14 am

In response to: Twittering towards the end

Hi Judy, thanks for your

Hi Judy, thanks for your comment. At the moment I have 1,184 followers, tho probably it's a small fraction of that who...

Writing

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Article: My debt to Dostoevsky

Article: The Writer As Detective

Published Reviews

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Jan.10.2009

A Vengeful Longing

Published by The Guardian

Halfway through this novel, with three murders on his mind and the stench of an 1868 St Petersburg summer ripe in his nostrils, investigating magistrate Porfiry Petrovich has a...

Audio & Video

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Image Gallery: blog images

Video: THE CLEANSING FLAMES

Video: An autumnal reading from A Razor Wrapped in Silk

About R. N.

Writing as Roger Morris, I'm the author of the contemporary urban thriller, Taking Comfort, which was published by Macmillan New Writing in 2006. A year later, under the slightly different name of R.N.Morris, I published a very different book, A Gentle Axe (...

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