Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

David King Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

David King
Photo: Dave Huntsman

David King

David King Biography

A Fulbright scholar with a master's degree from Cambridge University, David King is the author of the acclaimed Finding Atlantis, Vienna 1814, and Death in the City of Light. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with his wife and children.

David King's website

This bio was last updated on 10/26/2016. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Interview

Learn about David King's gruesome but fascinating research for Death in the City of Light, and discover how gaining access to previously classified police reports helped him get inside the mind of a serial killer.

A serial killer in Paris during the Nazi occupation? This sounds like fiction. How much is made up?
None of it is fiction. There are no imagined scenes whatsoever. As in my previous books, every bit of dialogue and every description comes from the sources - in this case, Paris police reports, newspapers, diaries, memoirs, correspondence, or other eyewitness accounts.

How did you get interested in this story?
It was during my first year teaching history at the University of Kentucky. I was preparing to give a lecture on World War II. At one point I took a break, went browsing in an antiquarian bookshop, and stumbled upon a book by a wartime spy that described these horrific murders - the chopped-up bodies, the cut-off faces, and the many unanswered questions about the case. I could not get this out of my mind. It was one of the most disturbing and frightening stories I had ever heard.

How did you research this book, and did you have any memorable experiences?
I'm obsessive. I want to read everything. I made several research trips to Paris, a city I have long known and loved from my years living in Europe. I tracked down the sites associated with the book - from Dr. Petiot's haunts to the hotspots of Nazi-occupied ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Books by this Author

Books by David King at BookBrowse
Six Days in August jacket Death in the City of Light jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for David King but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

We recommend 10 similar authors


Non-members can see 2 results. Become a member
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Our Evenings
    Our Evenings
    by Alan Hollinghurst
    Alan Hollinghurst's novel Our Evenings is the fictional autobiography of Dave Win, a British ...
  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

Happiness belongs to the self sufficient

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.