THE DARK CLUE

Inspired by the Victorian sensation novel, James Wilson's first novel, The Dark Clue, is a portrait of the age in all of its staggering extremes, as inventive and multifaceted as the oil paintings of J. M. W. Turner, the elusive genius who lies at the thriller's heart. When Walter Hartright -- the sheltered, upright character from Wilkie Collins's classic mystery novel The Woman in White -- is hired to write a biography of England's great Romantic landscape artist, he discovers the "dark clue" hidden deep within Turner's brilliant paintings. Obsessed with reconstructing a life that is shrouded in mystery, Walter seeks help from a Dickensian assemblage including the visionary John Ruskin, the haughty aristocrats, the desperate, and the criminal. Soon enough, Walter uncovers evidence of unspeakable depravity, but can the truth behind Turner's myth be freed from a rapidly expanding web of conspiracy? Only Walter's capable and loving Halcombe can hope to rescue him from the harrowing downward spiral that follows. James Wilson's first book, The Earth Shall Weep, established him as a groundbreaking historian and evocative storyteller. His debut novel plumbs the myth of creative genius, offering a startling commentary on truth seeking and recording history. In the tradition of John Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman and Charles Palliser's The Quincunx, The Dark Clue is a masterful fiction debut from one of the original voices of our time.