Edgar Allan Poe and the Empire of the Dead

Starred review from March 30, 2020
The ominous prologue of the terrific concluding volume of Street’s Poe trilogy (after 2018’s Edgar Allan Poe and the Jewel of Peru) takes place in Baltimore in October 1849, just days before the real Poe died. Poe has a vision of his dead wife and an apothecary dispensing poison, which reveals the truth about how he “had finally been murdered and by whom.” Flash back to June. The writer gets a letter from his friend C. Auguste Dupin, entreating him to come to Paris. Dupin needs his help tracking down Ernest Valdemar, who’s responsible for sending Dupin’s grandparents to the guillotine during the French Revolution. When the two friends meet, Dupin tells Poe he’s sure Valdemar forged the letter and had reason to lure Poe to Paris. Valdemar appears to be working with Poe’s nemesis, George Reynolds, whose father was falsely imprisoned for the assaults of more than 50 women that were committed by Poe’s maternal grandparents decades earlier. Street fulfills the promise of the tantalizing opening with a twisty and nail-biting plot. Fans of other superior fictional treatments of Poe will be enthralled. Agent: Oli Munson, A.M. Heath (U.K.).

April 15, 2020
What nemesis has tricked the noted American author into coming to Paris, and why? An urgent request from his friend C. Auguste Dupin brings Edgar Allan Poe to Paris in June 1849 to help him unravel another mystery, this one very personal. Dupin, the Parisian detective in the real-life Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," dreads the reemergence of his nemesis, Ernest Valdemar, the man who destroyed his family decades ago. Poe, who narrates in typically florid style, is mourning the death of his beloved wife, Sissy, and his two-week crossing from Philadelphia to Le Havre is bathed in melancholy. When he arrives, there's another surprise. Dupin didn't write the letter that brought him; who did? And why did they want Poe in Paris? The plot unfolds in a series of juicy set pieces. Touching a carved owl reveals a dark passage behind a bookcase. Dupin believes, against any scientific proof and the opinion of his physician, Dr. Froissart, that an elixir he takes in small doses may be slowly killing him. Froissart is consumed with another crime as dastardly as it is convoluted. Years ago, a boy was kidnapped and has now grown into manhood. The Grand Duke of Gerolstein is investigating this matter; coincidentally (or perhaps not), Poe interacted with the grand duke and his friend Herr Durand on his trans-Atlantic crossing. Dupin fears that both the grand duke and the young man are in danger. But from whom? The duo's search takes them to the catacombs, the Grand Guignol, and a bizarre puppet theater. The third co-starring vehicle for Poe and the detective he created is a juicy gothic potboiler.

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Starred review from May 1, 2020
In this most macabre of Street's three Poe and Dupin mysteries, Edgar Allan Poe shares the stage with his own fictional characters?particularly C. Auguste Dupin, sleuthing star of several Poe stories. In June 1849, Poe, still mourning the death of his young wife more than two years earlier, is asked by Dupin to join him in Paris. But Dupin's letter of invitation turns out to be a forgery, presumably part of a plot by Ernest Valdemar, Dupin's nemesis and the evil mesmerist scheming to become king of France. As it turns out, Valdemar also is in league with George Reynolds, Poe's sworn enemy who has vowed to kill him for the sins of his Poe's ancestors. Exploits of Poe and Dupin, whose friendship is so close that they are like brothers, take them from the salon of the infamous Madame Legrand (where Charles Baudelaire defends Poe's poetry against that of their hostess) through the catacombs of Paris, lined in places with human bones and skulls. In a brisk, vivid narrative that includes magic, alchemy, metempsychosis (the transfer of souls between bodies), and the pain of loss, Street details new life for Dupin, and for Poe, a reunion with his beloved. Superlative historical mystery, capturing the tone of the time and Poe's lasting literary legacy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)