Ex-library hardcover copy obtained from The Friends of Montgomery County Library used book store.

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From Publishers Weekly
Fans of Pearl's bestselling debut, The Dante Club (2003), will eagerly embrace his second novel, a compelling thriller centered on the mysterious end of Edgar Allan Poe, who perished in Baltimore in 1849. Poe's ignominious funeral catches the notice of Quentin Clark, a young, idealistic attorney, who finds himself obsessed with rescuing Poe's reputation amid rumors that the writer died from an excess of drink. Clark's preoccupation soon becomes all-consuming, imperiling his practice and his engagement, especially after he learns that Poe's legendary master sleuth, the Chevalier Auguste Dupin, was modeled after a real person. The lawyer journeys to France to track down the real Dupin, in the hopes that the detective can help him solve the puzzle of Poe's death. Pearl masterfully combines fact with fiction and presents some genuinely new historical clues that help reconstruct Poe's final days. While Clark remains a little enigmatic, the exciting plot, numerous twists and convincing period detail could help land this on bestseller lists as well.

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Update 8/17/07: Finally finished reading this today and I have to say that I really struggled. I have been an Edgar Allan Poe fan for years and I was looking forward to reading this book. However, the writing style and the story itself did not really impress me and it was hard to keep interested. The book was written in the vernacular and style of the 19th century and I sometimes couldn't focus on what was being said. I had to reread several passages. The style reminded me some of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, but the Holmes stories were much better written and kept your attention. I didn’t understand the motivations of the main character and why he was so interested in finding out what happened to Poe before his untimely death. And to me the conclusion was anticlimatic. This is the first in a series of books that all relate to Poe that I am sending out as bookrays. I hope the others are better than this one! I am interested in what other readers will have to say about this book – other reviews I have read at Amazon.com and elsewhere have been pretty mixed.

Bookray

Starting a bookray for this book. Please PM me if interested. Bookray will remain open until last person has the book.

Participants so far:

. UnwrittenLibra from Maryland, USA (anywhere)
. krin511 from Maryland, USA (USA only)
. GrannyAnn from New York, USA (USA only)
. TwiggySC1973 from South Carolina, USA (anywhere)
. geniedances from Texas, USA (USA only)
. indygo88 from Indiana, USA (USA only)
. sarradee from Texas, USA (North America only)
. JennyC1230 from Georgia, USA (USA preferred - international if needed)
. LyekkaMarengo from Pennsylvania, USA (anywhere)
. emmagoldmanzine from Pennsylvania, USA (USA/Canada only)
. mssaver from Illinois, USA (USA preferred - will ship international if necessary)
. darkhorse4460 from UK (Europe preferred - international by surface mail)
. ana-b from Netherlands (international)
. kaila-ann (South Carolina, USA - US only)<----Book is here

Note: Order is subject to change based on shipping preferences and others joining the bookray.

How the bookray works:
* Someone will PM you for your address, PM them back and provide your address
* When you receive the book, please make a journal entry letting everyone know that you received it
* Put the book at the top of your TBR pile (under other rings/rays that arrived first)
* Read the book (take your time and enjoy the book, don't feel rushed to finish it but try to pass it on within a couple of months - others are waiting!)
* When the end is in sight, check the book's journal and PM the next person to get their address
* Finish the book, make another journal entry and let everyone know what you thought of the book
* Send the book to the next person on the list (please use the cheapest shipping method available), make release notes (Controlled Release) or journal entry to let everyone know that it's in the mail
* END OF THE RAY, The last person on the ray could try and continue the ray or just give/mail the book to someone else who might like to read it, perhaps a RABCK - look at cliff1976.com wish list web site, or release it into the wild.

Please feel free to PM me at any time with questions

Bookray is complete. Thanks everyone for participating!

RELEASE NOTES:

On its way to UnwrittenLibra in Baltimore, MD (where most of this book takes place) to start this bookray.

USPS DC# 0306 1070 0005 5934 2139

Received this book in the mail yesterday...it's longer than I thought! Can't wait to read it. Thanks!

I was really disappointed by this book. I trudged onward and onward, but couldn't get past the overuse of elevated language (who thinks in 10-letter words? even in 1851!) and the confusion of the names of characters/which side they were on. I only kept reading because the story took place in Baltimore, and I recognized a few of the landmarks. The plot was very convoluted and the clues obscure, but at least I can say that I read it. Honestly...Glen Eliza? Bonjour? and the Hattie subplot was completely ridiculous. Thanks again for including me, perryfran, and I'm sorry I kept everyone waiting by holding on to it so long.

The book was back home to the Free State with today's mail going out from Amherst, Massachusetts. It will be in the hands of Karen (krin) within the week. Miss you, Maryland...boo hoo :( I won't see you again until after by 20th birthday :(

Arrived today - thanks! I will probably start reading it sometime next week.

This book had a good attention to detail as I learned a lot about Baltimore and Paris in the late 1840s-1850s. I did find that the plot sometimes dragged a bit as Quentin's personal fate overshadowed the mystery of Poe's death, but it was nicely wrapped up at the end. I also liked Pearl's notes at the end as he explains how he used actual newspaper quotes and letters throughout the narrative.

RELEASE NOTES:

Mailed to GrannyAnn!

Received in the mail yesterday. I have one ring to finish and then I'll start.

Thanks for sharing!

I really looked forward to reading this book. That said, I was very disappointed. I couldn't get into it: didn't care about the characters, the language was very stilted. I only read the first 100 pages. Sorry!

Mailed to TwiggySC1973 via media mail. DC # 03071790000571020455. I hope she enjoys it more than I did.

Thanks for hosting, perryfran.

Received in the mail.

Well it took me a little longer to read this book, than it did for Madeline. I'm glad though that I read them in this order, for I feel it would have been harder to read Madeline which is clearly a fictious story about Poe's life. The Poe Shadow on the other hand took into account historical documents of what happend to Poe in his last days. Although the book can get bogged down in details and sometimes quite boring, it was an interesting idea on what might have happend.

Controlled Release:Mailed out last week.

Mailed out on Saturday night. My schedule has been on overload since before Christmas. There just wasn't time to get this book read in a resonable amount of time. Its on its way to the next reader on the list.

Poe (or rather, his shadow) arrived here today! Interesting reviews thus far...I'll give it a go after my current read. Thanks! :')

3/13/08 -- Starting book today.

All of the previous journal entries (& other reviews I've read) had me worried as to whether I'd make it through this book. That said, I think overall I enjoyed it more than I maybe expected to. I'm not really all that knowledgeable on Poe, so I found a lot of the story enlightening & I esp. enjoyed the historical note at the end. I was under the impression that a lot of the plot and locale were fictional, but they actually were based quite a bit on historical documents, etc. I do agree with earlier entries -- the language was a bit difficult, but I also wonder if that was somewhat representative of the time. I did find the whole ratiocination thing a bit hard to follow/swallow, and thus the ending "wrap-up" seemed almost kind of far-fetched & unbelievable, at least coming from Auguste's view. But overall it was a fairly enjoyable book for me.

I sent this out earlier today to sarradee, so it should be en route!

Arrived safely today, I'm a little worried about my reading experience based on the previous journal entries, especially since I just couldn't get into Madeline. I did like The Dante Club though, so I'll give it a fair chance.

I almost gave up on this book several times but ended up reading all the way through because I wanted to know what conclusion the author came to in the end. I can't say I was entirely satisfied by my experience. I didn't really understand why the protagonist was so willing to throw away certain aspects of his life in order to "solve the mystery" of the death of a man he barely knew. The ending was anticlimactic, and not at all worthy of the enormous buildup.

I have JennyC1230's address and will be mailing today or tomorrow.

This came in the mail today! Looking forward to reading it.

I mailed to LykkaMarengo on May 2nd. USPS Media Mail - Delivery Confirmation #03070020000022320920

Got this last week but just got to the computer. Thanks for sending it on and I'm sorry for the delay.

I think I may have a copy of this somewhere but I'll go ahead and read this one since it's a bookring it will force me to.

BTW, liking the Poe theme.

Finished this up last night. I didn't think it was as good as his first book and not as good as some of the others in this cycle of Poe books but I did enjoy it once I got reading it. It did lag a bit in places with a little too much explaining. It deals with the missing last few days of Poe's life and while this is a more "truthful" sounding resolution of that mystery "Madeline" was much more fun and a better read. Pearl's language in this book matches the time period and for those that have never read anything written in this time it might be a bit of a slog at first. I find it takes me a few chapters to get into the hang of it. He did seem to lose focus sometimes and I have to say I started to not really care who the "good" guys were after awhile. I just wanted to get the mystery unraveled which at the end took way, way too much time.

Sent off to emmagoldmanzine in Philadelphia, PA, USA today.

The book has arrived!! I'm really looking forward to reading this. I've got a book to finish this weekend and then I'll get right to it. I'm hoping to finish it before I leave for Minnesota on July 15th; we'll see how that goes.

I tried to get into this book and when i could i enjoyed it, but i'm just not enjoying it enough to attempt to finish it in a reasonable time and since i've held on to it for so long, i've sent it off on it's merry way. it went out last week. i hope others can enjoy it more than me!

It's here! I'll get started on it as soon as I finish the book I'm currently reading.

Yes, I'm afraid I was a little disappointed, too. The book started out slowly, but I felt it picked up once the narrator reached France. It was somewhat like a bell curve, but stretched out. In spite of perking up my attention in France and again in the return to Baltimore, it started to drag again. I managed to get to the end, but only because the author had piqued my curiosity, so I kept reading to find out how he reached his conclusions. I'll get the book on its way to darkhorse4460 shortly.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

The book is on its way across the pond!

Received today from mssaver - thank you, its great to get packages from 'over there' :-)

It looks as though everyone's a little disappointed with this but I'll give it a fair trial. I have two other bookring books to read first it may be a few weeks before I can start on it.

This wasn't quite as bad as I thought it might be after reading the previous comments but it doesn't rank amongst my best reads this year. I don't generally have problems with elaborate language written in a pseudo antique style or a slow pace as long as the writing is good the characters and plot interesting and there is lots of period atmosphere. I think the author could do better in all these areas.

Although Matthew Pearl has clearly done a great deal of research and the story he has woven around the death of Poe is fascinating and potentially gripping, somehow he doesn't quite pull it off as a work of fiction. It's partly the style of writing which is a little turgid and monotonous, partly that the characters are not terribly well drawn or sympathetic when they should be - particularly the Poe obessed narrator Quentin who is frankly irritating much of the time. Although the author has lots of detailed knowledge of Baltimore and Paris at the time, I didn't really get much sense of the atmosphere of these places nor of suspense and found myself not really caring much about the outcome.

I'd recommend to everyone here, if they haven't read it already, The American Boy by Andrew Taylor which also has a Poe connection and has all the qualities of a historical thriller The Poe Shadow lacks.

I shall be passing this on to ana-b as soon as I can after the holiday break.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Mailing to ana-b.

Received the book this morning. Thanks perryfran and darkhorse4460.

I've tried a few times, but I can't finish it. In the end, I just leafed through the last last chapters. I was really excited about his first book The Dant Club, but this story is rather boring. I didn't understand the urge to find out what happened to Poe and I found the writing very old-fashioned and it took too long.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

On its way to America.

Arrived in the mail today and I will read it as soon as I finish up with a couple of books that are ahead of it. Thank you for including me on this ray!

Getting ready to move which means it's time to cull the stacks. This one will be finding a new home soon!