Welcome to Baltimore, 1849. Quentin Clark, a smart young lawyer,
has everything one could hope for. He has a beautiful home, a solid
legal practice, and an engagement to a lifelong friend. All of this
is to fall by the wayside when he is compelled to watch a funeral
that has only four witnesses and no service to speak of. There are
no wreaths, there is no weeping.

Imagine Quentin's disbelief to read in the paper of the death of
Edgar Allan Poe, a writer for whom Quentin has the utmost passion,
with whom he had begun correspondence only just prior to the
writer's death, and whose demise garnered only a slight mention on
the inside pages of the local paper. Further mystery develops when
Quentin learns that the pitiful funeral service he witnessed was
for Poe. How is it that a writer of such brilliance could be so
overlooked? How can it be that an author of such outstanding works
as THE RAVEN or THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE could be so reviled
by his peers and critics in the ensuing obituaries that
followed?

Quentin begins the search for those answers, ignoring his duties as
a lawyer and as a fiance. Only when he runs into dead ends and then
is threatened to leave the manner of Poe's death alone does he
realize he cannot complete his investigation alone. The only one
who can possibly help is the one man on whom Poe based his most
illustrious and brilliant detective, C. Auguste Dupin. Traveling to
France, Quentin finds two people who may or may not be the real
Dupin, and each begins their own investigation into the mysterious
death of Poe. Quentin wants it done for the sake of Poe's legacy.
The two competing Dupins have their own reasons for undertaking the
work, which could affect their futures as well as those of Quentin,
Poe, and the world.

Matthew Pearl picks up where he left off with his bestseller THE
DANTE CLUB, and in many ways he realizes the potential he exhibited
with that work. THE POE SHADOW is an astounding piece of history
mingled with fiction, and it is quite evident from the novel that
Pearl has as much interest in Poe as narrator Quentin. From the
very first page, Pearl grabs you with the mystery of Poe's funeral,
and the unraveling mystery of the writer's death is richly detailed
and explained, wrapped and woven into Quentin's crusade to save
Poe's rightful place in history at the risk to his own
future.

The two Dupins who vie for Quentin's trust leave the reader
see-sawing between them. Who is true? Just as we begin to find
comfort in one, the other finds a way to place distrust in that
decision. Pearl does a magnificent job of earning our trust and
then destroying it, keeping the shadow of the events constantly in
motion and keeping us from seeing the end prematurely. It is not a
mystery solved in the first half of the novel, and it is a
testament to Pearl's ability to lure the reader with story and with
historical fact, doling it out just enough to keep us hungry for
more until the final revelations that come in the ending
pages.

The research done for this novel was exemplary, shown by the ease
with which the reader is made comfortable in the 1800s locales and
lifestyles. The cities, the language, and the mannerisms of society
are all in place and do not feel out of the ordinary, nor do they
feel forced. The novel flows and it is an easy ride to undertake.
For those who know Poe and the mysteries that have followed in his
wake, much will be familiar. However, Pearl injects some life into
the age-old questions with some new facts discovered while he
researched the book.

Edgar Allan Poe has long been associated and credited as the man
who created the detective story with his works involving the
masterful C. Auguste Dupin. Over the course of time, the quality of
his work gained the acceptance and the recognition it deserved.
Matthew Pearl takes up the torch admirably in an effort to tip his
hat to his subject. Ultimately, readers are left with an
astoundingly well-devised mystery that even the great Poe would
have loved.