Karen Lee Street

Nowadays I listen to more books than I read. That's why I'm always thrilled when I can combine books I have (whether it be arcs or books I have bought). This gives me the opportunity to listen to books at work and then read when I get home. Like with this book that I've been looking forward to reading. First, I want to say that my knowledge of Edgar Allan Poe is very basic, I know some of what he has written and of course details of his life (and quite puzzling death). But, I was ignorant enough that it took me some googling to realize (or remember) that Dupin is his own creations. Adding those books to my want to read list btw.

As for this book. I was charmed. I know that Virginia (Sissy) was only 13 when she married Edgar Poe (27 at the time). And, that may seem, especially nowadays a bit off-putting. However, Sissy is a truly great character, and so is her mother and of course Edgar himself. Not to mention C. Auguste Dupin. I quite enjoy the mystery that Helena Loddiges brought to the family Poe's house. And, Helena is such a wonderfully eccentric character with her love for birds. I love historical mysteries and I especially love those with real people staring. Well, and of course as with books like this one, characters that are the creation of the real person that happens to have become a fictional character. LOL, yes that line felt a bit odd writing.

This is a great book and I can't wait to read/or listen to the first book in the series!

I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review!… (mere)

This is the third in the author's trilogy of pastiche literary mysteries featuring Edgar Allan Poe teaming up with his fictional detective, Auguste Dupin. Dupin is as ever before obsessed with tracking down his arch nemesis and murderer of his grandparents Ernest Valdemar. There was a large element of Grand Guignol again here, though the constant descriptions of pyramids and other structures composed of human bones, and reenactments of death, got a bit wearing after a while and I felt little sympathy with Dupin's quest. Poe's grief over his dead wife Virginia (Sissy) and the pain of love and loss was a powerful theme of the novel also and had a melancholic effect on me. The literary melange was further added to by the presence not only of many real mid 19th century French literary figures, but also a number of striking figures from Eugene Sue's literary masterpiece Mysteries of Paris, often described as a prototype of Les Miserables, and which I read last autumn. This is imaginative and well written, but I am glad this trilogy has ended.… (mere)

This is the second literary mystery featuring Edgar Allan Poe teaming up with his fictional detective, Auguste Dupin, this time in his native Philadelphia, investigating a mysterious case involving real live and stuffed birds and treasure books brought back from darkest Peru. I didn't find this as gripping as The London Monster, perhaps partly because Victorian London seemed to me like a more appropriate setting for such a dark story, though this feeling makes no sense given Poe's nationality. It seemed a bit too convoluted and fantastical, and I found the info dumps on species of birds a bit much. It was well written and I will read the third in the trilogy, but was left feeling a bit dissatisfied with this one.… (mere)

This is a very well written literary mystery in which Edgar Allan Poe teams up with the fictional detective he created, Auguste Dupin, in order to investigate a mystery in London in 1840. Poe is receiving mysterious letters claiming to implicate his long deceased grandparents, Henry and Elizabeth Arnold, British actors on the London stage in the 1790s, in a series of bizarre crimes, a real historical series of attacks on ladies where their skirts were slit and their buttocks slashed by a knife-wielding man (nicknamed by the media the "London Monster"). Poe and Dupin must investigate who has penned these letters and their motives, in the process coming to know and often mistrust a selection of individuals in incidents that clearly gave Poe inspiration for some of his most famous stories such as The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Masque of the Red Death. Indeed he pays a call on Charles Dickens (who is out) and meets his pet raven, Grip, who appears in the latter's Barnaby Rudge and inspired Poe 's most famous poem. The final resolution contains a number of twists and turns. Extremely well written, the narrative just on occasion became a little confusing with a number of dream sequences, but is a powerful read. It is the first of a trilogy and I will read the others.… (mere)