The Interpretation of Murder is an intricately plotted literary thriller based on true events - the story of Sigmund Freud's 1909 visit to New York. Around this kernel of fact, Jed Rubenfeld has spun a spectacularly entertaining fiction centred upon murder: a wealthy young debutante is discovered bound, whipped and strangled in her penthouse apartment, high above Broadway. The following night Nora Acton, another society beauty, narrowly escapes the same fate and the mayor of New York calls upon Freud to use his revolutionary ideas to help Nora recover her memory and solve the crime. But nothing about the attacks - or indeed about Nora - is quite as it seems.
As fiendishly ingenious a thriller as you could hope to read, The Interpretation of Murder cuts to the heart of what it is that makes Freud's ideas so fascinating and hugely engaging. It's also the ultimate New York story: the construction of the skyscrapers, glittering high society salons, Chinatown opium dens, brothels and asylums, all have their part to play in Jed Rubenfeld's dazzling vision of Manhattan. A compelling tour through the dark places of a city, and of the human mind, The Interpretation of Murder is a storytelling triumph, and marks the debut of a major new talent.
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