THE MAGICIANS AND MRS QUENT - A Novel by Beckett, Galen - 2008

New York: Bantam Books - Spectra, 2008. 390 pp. Quarter-bound in black on black boards; black endpapers; headband. Light rubbing at the corners of the dustjacket; price intact; no interior markings. The dustjacket features Nightfall on the Thames by John Atkinson Grimshaw, courtesy of Leeds Museums and Galleries. Commissioned by a haughty aristocrat to write a biography of one of England's greatest painters, J. M. W. Turner, Hartright and his sister-in-law Marian take up an investigation that sends them across Victorian London in all of its staggering extremes. Together, they encounter a kaleidoscopic array of the age's fantastic characters, from the hardened street children of the city's poorest quarters to the tawdry women of the dockside brothels to the celebrated visionary of arts and letters, John Ruskin. Soon enough, disturbing evidence emerges of an artist's secret life and perverted passions in a masterpiece of noir.. Third Printing. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. Illus. by Phillip Heffernan;. 8vo. Book.