For readers that have been yearning for a book that speaks with an older, wiser voice, written in a long forgotten style, with a classic fluidity that can only be penned by a select few…Here ya’ go! R. N. Morris has delivered a novel that embraces the historic elements of a true masterpiece, indulges the nostalgic desires of the quintessential reader and satisfies even the most discerning contemporary suspense-thriller lover!Fyodor Dostoevsky first introduced readers to criminal investigator Porfiry Petrovich, in the 1866 novel Crime & Punishment. The book is centered around the murder of a pawnbroker and her half-sister by a deranged, impoverished student, named Raskolnikov. It is a year after this mind-numbing case that Morris picks up the story and takes the reader deep into the investigator’s life and of course, a brand new murder mystery.Searching for firewood in St. Petersburg’s Petrovsky Park, a woman stumbles upon a dead body hanging from a tree. Nearby, a second body, that of a dwarf, is found in a suitcase. A laundry list of items were initially left at the scene, however, by the time investigator Petrovich is alerted, via an anonymous tip, anything of value is missing, thus complicating an already difficult case. The search for answers will take the rotund detective through many facets of Russian society, from the dark, dank squalid apartments of the slums to the elegant, sprawling homes of the sophisticated elite. As the Park investigation continues, other, seemingly unrelated murders occur, forcing the investigation in a surprisingly new direction. To solve the Park case, Petrovich will have to think outside the box…connecting the dots of this disturbing case will prove to be even more difficult than the case that had defined him.Morris unravels the layers of St. Petersburg and its residents, slowly, like a delicious, blooming onion, allowing the reader to savor the flavor and enjoy each and every bite. There are strong, no-non-sense characters and those that bring a lighter, at times, humorous element to the story, thus eliciting a myriad of emotions from the reader. Gentle Axe is not littered with red herrings and preemptive spoilers, instead it is based on a clever plot, written with artistic flair. The characters are drawn with the kind of intimate detail one ascertains from a photograph and the settings are constructed with the artistic eye of a painter. The author took a significant, yet calculated risk- borrowing the lead character, setting and back story from the famous work of a beloved writer, which could easily garner a host of negativity. However, creating a sequel that feels Dostoevsky-like, that reads like a true Morris original, is a note-worthy accomplishment, indeed!A spell-binding novel that will definitely keep you up late…reading! And you’ll want to share this one with friends and coworkers –it’s really that good!Happy Reading!
As it has been decades since I look at Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment (and so now I perhaps have an incentive to do so), I cannot say how well Morris "captures" the original Porfiry Petrovitch. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this truly atmospheric mystery. Morris clearly spent time in St. Petersburg, for he has the geography down pat. (Or, at least as best as I can remember it, for it is now twenty years since I spent delightful days in then Leningrad).My forebearers, who came from Tsarist Russia, certainly knew their herring, and Morris has littered this book with what one might thing are "red" ones. But in an denouement pulled from the Agatha Christie playbook, Porfiry Petrovitch reveals the solution, masterfully pulling together what appears as disparate threads.I also wonder how many "in jokes" are hidden within the text. For example, when the elderly woman comes upon the bodies, she crossed herself with two fingers. In the political/religious reform of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovitch (father of Peter the Great), crossing oneself changed from two fingers to three (to represent the Trinity). People who rfused to change and persisted in the old custom were called "Old Believers" (Raskolniki)and were banished to the hinterlands (Ukraina). Persecuted but never eliminated, the Old Believers experienced a tremendous revival during the reign of the reactionary Tsar Nikolai Pavlovitch, which ended in 1855. Is the old woman's crossing herself with two fingers intended to recall the Raskolnini? (With her inordinate fondness for icons, it seems likely? And was this in turn intended to call to mind Raskolinov, the murdered in the original Crime and Punishment?
What do You think about The Gentle Axe (2007)?
I thoroughly enjoyed this book! There were a few slow stretches but overall the plot kept me engaged, the rotating cast of characters was interesting, and the periodic philosophical commentary was pertinent. That being said, this book struck me as very Russian, with Russian names and language usage that struck me as very Slavic. This is something that I really enjoy but I know others have had issues with it.Morris took Dostoyevsky's Porfiry Petrovich from Crime and Punishment and gave the detective another case; one that seems straightforward on the surface but quickly unravels into a tangled web of murder and morality.
—Sonja
R.N. Morris picks up the career of Porfiry Petrovich, the man who tormented, and then drew a confession from, the Piter student Raskolnikov in Fyodor Dostoevsky's 'Crime and Punishment'. Taking on such a colossus of literature as Dostoevsky - willfully walking into his shadow - is the sort of mad act one would expect from one of his characters; Morris has succeeded. The descriptions with which the author builds 'The Gentle Axe', similar enough to Dostoevsky's to retain continuity, are deliberately distinctive enough that imitation is clearly not what Morris had in mind. Likewise, the characters, carrying Dostoevsky's compound of the defiant hopelessness inflicted by poverty while still being individual to Morris, who fleshes out the lives of the former's peripheral names while successfully introducing new faces, worthy of such a story. Porfiry Petrovich himself is alive with all of the foibles - the detective's games, the self-doubt - while all around him carries sufficient freshness to pair this book with the original while not anchoring itself to 'Crime...'.Fans of the minutiae of Dostoevsky's work may pick Morris' work apart, but I think they are missing the point. This book is not a continuation of 'Crime and Punishment', but an individual attempt to branch away from Raskolnikov's life, remain in 1860s St Petersburg, and run with a new concept loosely linked to previous work. See it this way and Morris has created a very good story from a thin sliver of history. In short, murder has been committed in a Russia grappling with a stuttering industrialisation and the Emancipation of the Serfs, and nobody can conceive of a man better qualified to entertain with its investigation than Porfiry Petrovich.
—Mike
A brutally murdered dwarf is found inside a suitcase in St. Petersburg’s Petrovsky Park, while the frozen body of the man presumed to be his murderer swings from a tree-branch overhead. R. N. Morris borrows Fyodor Dostoevky’s famous Porfiry Petrovich to investigate these crimes in The Gentle Axe. Fresh from his pursuit of the student Raskolnikov, Porfiry realizes that all is not what it seems and through a process of trial, error and astute psychology, manages to expose the true nature of these crimes. Although Morris borrows a bit too much from Crime and Punishment in this novel (we have another starving student – Virginsky – and Lilya, a prostitute who is not dissimilar to Dostoevsky’s Sonechka), he creates a wonderfully atmospheric nineteenth century St. Petersburg, complete with the horrific living conditions for the poor that made revolution seem so imperative. The solution to the mystery is ingenious and the characters memorable; if you’re looking for a historical mystery with a bit more depth than usual, this is a wonderful read.
—Bibliophile
