"I present to you...the truth about this man's death and my life."

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.

Following his phenomenal debut novel, The Dante Club, Matthew Pearl has once again crossed pitch-perfect literary history with innovative mystery to create a beautifully detailed, ingeniously plotted tale of suspense. Pearl's groundbreaking research — featuring documented material never published before — opens a new window on the truth behind Poe's demise, literary history's most persistent enigma. The resulting novel is a publishing event that, through sublime craftsmanship, subtle wit, and devious twists, does honor to Poe himself.

"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. Author tour. (May)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"These two new novels about Edgar Allan Poe's curious life both come draped with the necessary — nay mandatory — mystery, but their approaches could not be more different. In 'The Pale Blue Eye,' by Louis Bayard, Poe is an impassioned genius with the world ahead of him; in 'The Poe Shadow,' by Matthew Pearl, he is the dishonored dead.

'The Pale Blue Eye' invites us to a dull, dark... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) and soundless day in the winter of 1830 and the Hudson Valley, where retired New York City detective Gus Landor is nursing the double trauma of physical illness and personal tragedy. At nearby West Point a cadet has been found hanged in a telltale manner, his heart removed from his body. Fearing closure of the school, the administration asks Landor to investigate. To assist him in this endeavor Gus calls upon a 20-year-old cadet named Edgar Allan Poe, who is at the military academy in a vain attempt to secure his legacy from his foster father. More murder and intrigue quickly follow, and Landor and Poe establish a curious alliance as they try to unravel the mystery.

There are, I feel, easier books to write, and it is to Bayard's huge credit that he carries off not only the cold and miserable locale with an atmospheric darkness worthy of his illustrious subject, but also that Poe himself walks and talks so convincingly throughout the pages of this novel. We know that Poe led a life of professional and personal disappointments coupled with the sure knowledge of his own genius, and Bayard has expertly placed the young Poe among the other characters here: his arrogance toward those who command the academy, his awkwardness and passion with the daughter of a military surgeon and his strained relationship with Landor, whom he wants to see as the father figure he never possessed.

But despite all this hugely accomplished and well-observed character study, the detective story that is meant to act as a framework for the book just doesn't match up to the style and quality of the prose. I'm something of a traditionalist when it comes to detective novels. I like to be offered red herrings and clues until given a false and then real resolution that makes me think admiringly, 'Ah, I should have seen that coming!'

In 'The Poe Shadow' by Matthew Pearl, author of 'The Dante Club,' we roll on to the year 1849. Poe, after a short lifetime of hard work, tragedy, disappointment and grudging acceptance of his literary worth, is buried in a Baltimore cemetery with just four mourners in attendance. Controversial during his lifetime because of his macabre stories and his penchant for accusing fellow writers of all manner of sins, this upstart crow is damned by the newspapers eager to write anything negative about the mysterious death of the mystery writer.

Here Pearl steps into the fray and gives us the young Quentin Clark, a Baltimore attorney of independent means who sets out to uncover the truth behind the death of his favorite author. Abandoning a partnership in a law firm and throwing a sound society engagement into jeopardy, he journeys to Paris to seek the services of the one man capable of answering the question of Poe's untimely death: the real-life model for C. Auguste Dupin, the brilliant detective who thrilled Clark — and the world — with his astounding feats of 'ratiocination' in cases such as 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue.'

Clark soon finds himself with not one but two eccentric Frenchmen who lay claim to being the model for the fictional detective. To compound the problem further, they are both soon back in Baltimore attempting to seek out the truth, while behind them the wind of international conspiracy gathers pace.

The Poe Shadow belongs firmly in the Dupin/Sherlock mold of cerebral armchair investigations revolving around detailed study of newspapers and the welcome return of inverted clue logic — not why something is, but why it isn't. This retro-ratiocination breathes refreshing life into the genre by returning to first principles. Beneath the cloak of this well-paced detective story and its understated wit, however, is a scholarly piece of work, a meticulously researched and detailed discussion of the events surrounding Poe's death. In fact, one wonders where reality ends and fiction begins, a question that Pearl dutifully discusses in the afterword. As a period piece the book is gloriously and sumptuously detailed, and if I ever get to Baltimore in the mid-19th century, I daresay I shall not be surprised by what I find.

Jasper Fforde is the author of 'The Eyre Affair.' His sixth novel, 'The Fourth Bear,' will be published in July." Reviewed by Jasper Fforde, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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"The Poe Shadow works well on two levels: It's effective history, sure to please fans of Edgar Allan Poe, and also it can stand alone as a fine piece of mystery writing, brimming with suspense. This dual reward is a testament to Pearl's skill in making 19th-century facts come alive in a taut story line that delivers entertainment as well as insight." Rocky Mountain News

"Like Louis Bayard's The Pale Blue Eye...The Poe Shadow cannot quite overcome the fact that it is...an emulation of the style of the real person being fictionalized. But both books are still ingenious works with a rich knowledge of Poe's life. (Grade: B)" Entertainment Weekly

"Pearl, who shows no signs of a sophomore slump in this work, continues to dazzle with his imagination and skill. One can't wait to see what he'll do next." Dallas-Ft. Worth Star Telegram

"This is similar to Pearl's Dante Club, which portrayed renowned authors trailing a serial killer, in its masterful blend of historical and fictional figures, meticulous research, and nineteenth-century literary style." Booklist

"Pearl demonstrates a clear mastery of Poe mythology and uses his knowledge of 1850s Baltimore to excellent effect. Clark is a bit of a bumbler, and the various denouements tend to be ponderous. Still, this literary historical mystery should please fans; highly recommended." Library Journal

"Regrettably, Mr. Pearl's prose style is not quite as rewarding as his research....What the book does with crushing accuracy is capture the heights of madness and devotion that Poe may have inspired in his time." The Wall Street Journal

"Its premise is irresistible....A few surprises aside, however, too little of substance happens, and Pearl's virtually bloodless characters never engage our interest. A disappointing successor to Pearl's terrific first novel." Kirkus Reviews

"The Poe Shadow fails to deliver a sufficiently compelling story to engage a wide audience. Pearl is a skilled and imaginative new writer, but his best book to date is his first novel and not his second." The Oregonian

"The Poe Shadow doesn't have the entertainingly lurid serial-killer plot of The Dante Club, but it does have charnel-houses, grave robbers, a dank prison and Malacca canes with swords in them. Poe would have liked it." Dallas Morning News

Quentin Clark, an ardent admirer of Edgar Allan Poes work, puts his own career and reputation at risk in a passionate crusade to salvage Poes. Following his phenomenal debut, "The Dante Club," Pearl has again created a beautifully detailed, ingeniously plotted tale of suspense.

Matthew Pearl is the New York Times bestselling author of The Dante Club and the editor of the Modern Library editions of Dante's Inferno (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) and Edgar Allan Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales. The Dante Club has been published in more than thirty languages and forty countries around the world. Pearl is a graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School and has taught literature at Harvard and at Emerson College. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He can be reached via his website, www.matthewpearl.com.