2019 A to Z Challenge - "P"
I read The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl long enough ago that I don't recall anything more than I did like it, but felt it was a bit more literary and challenging than what I currently read. The Poe Shadow felt the same way. Though I had a hard time staying connected to it (and reading some reviews, I'm not the only one). The premise is enticing: the real life mystery of Poe's death (which was as odd as his life and his stories) being fictionally solved. Yet, the story dragged and the end of the story - Colombo/Sherlock style of dodging all the red herrings to get to the summarizing of all the evidence was mind-numbing.
I'm not giving up on Pearl as I have The Last Dickens on my shelf.
Summary from Goodreads: Baltimore, 1849. The body of Edgar Allan Poe has been buried in an unmarked grave. The public, the press, and even Poe’s own family and friends accept the conclusion that Poe was a second-rate writer who met a disgraceful end as a drunkard. Everyone, in fact, seems to believe this except a young Baltimore lawyer named Quentin Clark, an ardent admirer who puts his own career and reputation at risk in a passionate crusade to salvage Poe’s.
As Quentin explores the puzzling circumstances of Poe’s demise, he discovers that the writer’s last days are riddled with unanswered questions the police are possibly willfully ignoring. Just when Poe’s death seems destined to remain a mystery, and forever sealing his ignominy, inspiration strikes Quentin–in the form of Poe’s own stories. The young attorney realizes that he must find the one person who can solve the strange case of Poe’s death: the real-life model for Poe’s brilliant fictional detective character, C. Auguste Dupin, the hero of ingenious tales of crime and detection.
In short order, Quentin finds himself enmeshed in sinister machinations involving political agents, a female assassin, the corrupt Baltimore slave trade, and the lost secrets of Poe’s final hours. With his own future hanging in the balance, Quentin Clark must turn master investigator himself to unchain his now imperiled fate from that of Poe’s.
Quotes: "'Our practice is awfully interesting at times....A lawyer in ancient Rome...swore never to defend a cause unless he thought it was just. We take case if their pay is just'"
"'Monsieur, the French girl possesses no freedom. In America a girl is free and honored for her independence until she is married. In France, the tables are turned. She is only free once she marries - and then with a freedom never to be imagined....'"
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