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The Dante Club: A Novel
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Features
  • ISBN13: 9780345490384
  • Condition: NEW
  • Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Categories Contemporary   General   All 4-for-3 Deals   Historical   Mass Market   4-for-3 Books   Printed Books  

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Description
The New York Times Bestseller

Boston, 1865. A series of murders, all of them inspired by scenes in Dante’s Inferno. Only an elite group of America’s first Dante scholars—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and J. T. Fields—can solve the mystery. Together with the police baffled, extra lives endangered, and Dante’s literary future at stake, the Dante Club must shed its sheltered literary existence and locate the killer.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Customer Reviews
Customer rating is 4 of 5  Fascinating literary tour de force, fell apart a bit at the end   2010-01-27
By Jonathan Groner (Washington, DC)
The Dante Club is an exciting, fast-paced thriller that happens to take place in the Boston of 1865 with major literary figures as its leading characters. What an audacious concept -- to make Holmes, Lowell, Longfellow, and others the sleuths -- and Pearl has pulled it off almost perfectly. The grime, the ugliness, the political corruption, and the post-Civil War ennui of the time are very much a part of this work.

As other reviewers have pointed out, one need not be a Dante aficionado to understand and to appreciate this book. The literary references -- and the thirteenth-century Italian poetry -- are explained in a way that does not interfere with the flow of the complex plot.

The solution to the mystery is fair, and I had no complaints about it. However, once it becomes clear what the real sequence of events has been, Pearl spends too much time elaborating upon it. This leads to a fairly flat ending. Still, this is a memorable mystery novel.
Customer rating is 1 of 5  Drudgery   2010-01-13
By Clasina Gm Oneill (USA)
Seldom do I abandon a novel before I have given it a fair chance and read it at least half way through. The writing style is awkward, the story has many irrelevant asides and drags the reader out into endless boredom. This work is nothing short of drudgery. Try "An Instance of the Fingerpost" by Iain Pears instead - brilliant historical fiction.
Customer rating is 4 of 5  A very decent read.   2010-01-04
By R. Ford (Reno, Nevada)
Kudos to Mr. Pearl. I'm a little leery of 19th century stories written by 21st century authors but this is well written and interesting. If was fun imagining the poets interacting and working together to solve a mystery. Just enough character development to make me want to learn more about them, read their poetry and read Dante.
Customer rating is 1 of 5  I'm Confused   2009-12-31
By E. Katinas
I started this book a couple of days ago but will probably not finish. One event in the book was so bewildering and disgusting that it put me immediately on my guard, making me think: "Will the rest of the book be like this?" Or maybe I missed something and someone can clarify: WHY in the name of all that's holy did Judge Healey's Irish maid, on finding the judge's fly and maggot infested corpse, put him into the wheelbarrow and take him back to the house?? (And just how in hell did she get him into that wheelbarrow, anyway? He was fat, wasn't he?) Okay, a half rotten corpse may not weight that much; but Pearl says specifically that she kicked away the wasp's nests, stuffed him into a wheelbarrow, wheeled him into his study, pulled the corpse's head into her lap (!?!) and began picking off and tearing up maggots and flies. WHY? She knew he was dead, and not just because of all the vermin; she was frightened when the corpse made a noise. Does this strike anyone besides me as extremely odd behavior?

There are many other things I dislike about this book, which other reviewers have already covered. But this was one of the oddest moments in a book I've encountered in a long, long time.
Customer rating is 4 of 5  Well Done Historical Mystery   2009-12-24
By ironman96 (Ohio)
Part of what makes this book work so well is its unique approach. In the Dante Club, the author intertwines history, literature, and a murder mystery to create a very entertaining story. The book leaves you on the edge of your seat and wanting to learn more about Dante, Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell. It was well researched and had just the right amount about Dante and the historical characters without going overboard. The mystery itself was suspenseful and believable. The only downside was that it was not set up in a way where you could guess the killer. This book definitely seems like it could make a great movie. Highly recommended as a thinking person's mystery.


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