Edgar Allan Poe and the Empire of the Dead
A Poe and Dupin Mystery
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
A thrilling historical mystery about mesmerism and magic, the shadows of the past, and the endurance of love—the third novel in the author’s acclaimed Poe and Dupin series.
“And I prayed that I would find a way to tell my most honorable friend, the Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin, the truth about how I had finally been murdered and by whom.”—EAP Summer, 1849.
When Edgar Allan Poe travels to Paris to help his dear friend hunt down the elusive criminal who bought the Dupin family to ruin during the French Revolution, the sleuthing duo are engaged by the prefect of police to recover the stolen letter of an infamous Parisian salonnière. Is the thief one of the French literary greats who attend her salons, or might it be Dupin’s own enemy who is scheming to become the Emperor of France?
Poe and Dupin are quickly embroiled in a deadly cat and mouse game that takes them to the treacherous tunnels of the city’s necropolis, where few who venture into the notorious Empire of the Dead manage to return from the darkness…
The third in the author’s critically acclaimed Edgar Allan Poe series, Empire of the Dead is a thrilling historical mystery about alchemy, mesmerism and magic, the shadows of the past, and the endurance of love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
