Works by
Roger Morris
(Aka R.N. Morris)
(Writer)

Writing as Roger Morris (Contemporary urban fiction)

• Taking Comfort (2006)
  Taking Comfort is a stylish and compelling first novel, original yet reader friendly. You won't have encountered anything quite like it before. Amongst many other things the book explores the complex interaction between the notions of comfort and discomfort in modern society, how we take comfort in the solidity and sexiness of products, use this slim consolation as a cushion against the randomness and tragedy of a world we know too much about and can control too little. The everyday reality of the central character in the novel begins to fracture over the course of a few days. Bad things happen around him. Very bad things. How is he to cope? How is he to take comfort? And what about the hooded murderer with the hammer?

Writing as R.N. Morris (Historical crime)

• The Gentle Axe (2007)
  Just before Christmas, in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1866, police investigator Porfiry Petrovich faces his most challenging murder case since the events made famous by F. Dostoevsky in the novel Crime and Punishment-a case with disturbing parallels and even darker implications
  
  Stumbling through Petvosky Park one cold morning in search of firewood, an elderly woman makes a horrifying discovery. A burly peasant twirls in the wind, hanging from a bowed tree by a rope about his neck, a bloody axe tucked into his belt. Nearby, packed neatly into a suitcase, is the body of a dwarf, a deep axe wound splitting his skull in two.
  
  It does not take long for the noted police investigator Porfiry Petrovich, still drained from his work on the case involving the deranged student Raskolnikov, to suspect that the truth of the matter is more complex than the crime scene might suggest. Why do so many roads lead to the same house of prostitution and the same ring of pornographers? Why do so many powerful interests seem intent on blocking his efforts? His 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, and the connections between the two spheres begin to multiply, both his anger and his terror mount.
  
  Atmospheric and tense from its dramatic opening to its shocking climax, The Gentle Axe is a spellbinding historical crime novel, a book that explores the darkest places of the human heart with tremendous energy, empathy, and wit. As lucky as St. Petersburg residents are to have Porfiry Petrovich in public service, we are equally fortunate to have R. N. Morris on hand to chronicle his most challenging case to date.