#40 - The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl

The Poe Shadow: A Novel

Matthew Pearl

Read because: I enjoyed his first novel, the Dante Club.

Traded through: www.bookins.com (although I listened to the audio book from the library)

Rating: 7 out of 10

Synopsis (from Booklist): In late 1849, Poe, traveling from his home in Virginia to Philadelphia for a lucrative editing job, went missing; however, he was found several days later, apparently drunk in a Baltimore tavern; he died after several days of delirium in a hospital and was buried unceremoniously. Press reports that Poe would be little missed so disturb Quentin Hobson Clark, a young Baltimore lawyer of independent means and a Poe admirer, that he vows to represent Poe's interests. To solve the mysterious death, Clark seeks in Paris the real-life model for Poe's fictitious detective, C. Auguste Dupin, selecting crime solver Auguste Dupont over lawyer Baron Claude Dupin. But the baron, still claiming to be Poe's model, follows Clark and Dupont to Baltimore, starting a cat-and-mouse game of detection that, because of French political implications, turns deadly.

My Review: This was one of those books that I'm really glad I listened to. I think I would have given it a lower rating had I read it, but I really appreciated Erik Singer's reading. I think it would have felt old and musty but Singer managed to bring a lot of life to the characters, especially to those who were French (the French accent in my head is ridiculously poor). In particular, I wouldn't have understood the subtleties of the names of characters, which were very important. The plot was slow and a felt a little heavy, but I liked learning more about both Poe (who really was just an ancillary character) and about Dupont and Dupin. The main character felt a little ridiculous and even irritating at times -- quick to judge and quick to get himself into trouble. I wanted to yell at him to slow down and think a bit and to stop being so impulsive. Bah.