Like David Morrell's previous De Quincey novels, Ruler of the Night blends fact and fiction to an exceptional degree, this time focusing on a real-life Victorian murder so startling that it changed the culture--in this case, the first murder on an English train. The brutality of the crime stoked the fears of a generation who believed that the newly invented railway would "annihilate time and space."In Ruler of the Night, readers feel they're actually on the harrowing fogbound streets of 1855 London as the brilliant Opium-Eater, Thomas De Quincey, and his irrepressible daughter, Emily, confront their most ruthless adversary. The stakes couldn't be greater--in both the heart of Victorian society and De Quincey's tormented soul.The fast-paced narrative matches the speed with which the railway changed Victorian life. It brings back Scotland Yard detectives Ryan and Becker, along with Lord Palmerston, Queen Victoria, and Prince Albert, and introduces a host of new characters from this fasci

Opium addict Thomas De Quincey and his irrepressible daughter Emily investigate the strangling of a lawyer in what is the first murder on an English train, and they uncover a dangerous secret that reaches the highest levels of British society.

1855. The railway has irrevocably altered English society, effectively changing geography and fueling the industrial revolution by shortening distances between cities: a whole day's journey can now be covered in a matter of hours. People marvel at their new freedom. But train travel brings new dangers as well, with England's first death by train recorded on the very first day of railway operations in 1830. Twenty-five years later, England's first train murder occurs, paralyzing London with the unthinkable when a gentleman is stabbed to death in a safely locked first-class passenger compartment. In the next compartment, the brilliant opium-eater Thomas De Quincey and his quick-witted daughter, Emily, discover the homicide in a most gruesome manner. Key witnesses and also resourceful sleuths, they join forces with their allies in Scotland Yard, Detective Ryan and his partner-in-training, Becker, to pursue the killer back into the fogbound streets of London, where other baffling murders o