Taking Comfort

"An eerie, intelligent thriller which will linger long in the mind of the reader." Thomas Waugh

Rob Saunders just wants to feel safe, but the world is a dangerous place.

It's Rob's first day in his new job. On the way into work, he sees a student throw herself under a tube train. Acting on an impulse, he picks up a file she dropped as she jumped.

Over the next few days, he is witness to other disturbing events, some more serious than others.

From each one he takes a 'souvenir'.

Through these objects, he hopes to keep at bay the dangers and terrors that threaten him. The more terrible the tragedy an object is associated with, the greater its power.

As Rob's behaviour becomes increasingly obsessive, the lines blur between witnessing, seeking out and initiating tragedy.

His relationship with his partner Julia becomes strained. She wants a baby, but Rob is reluctant to bring another life into a world that frightens him. Meanwhile he is on the verge of initiating an edgy affair with a colleague.

Events begin to spiral out of control when he makes a frightening discovery while jogging in the woods. And the danger that he fears invades his life with terrifying violence.

Atmospheric, tense and stylistically bold, Taking Comfort is an exploration of identity and desire told through multiple viewpoints. A literary thriller with the anxieties and survival strategies of a post-9/11 world as its theme.

Recommended for readers of Don DeLillo, Haruki Murakami and Noah Hawley.

"A book which opens up your perceptions, challenges your assumptions and makes you think about language." Elizabeth Baines, author of Astral Travel

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 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