A review by wyemu
The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl

3.0

I liked the idea behind this novel more than I enjoyed the execution of that idea. Pearl picked a very good literary figure on which to base his second book, precisely because of the mystery which really does surround Poe's death. Finding the man who inspired Poe's legendary detective, Dupin, and using him to help uncover the suspicious nature of Poe's death was another brilliant idea. What let me down though was the narrator's naivete and apparent cluelessness. Then end result and the conclusions drawn by the detective's were ingenius but I still felt that the narrator could have been a stronger character. Other than that I enjoyed the book immensely, it was atmospheric and often chillingly suspenseful, much like Poe's own writing.