Edgar Poe and the Mystery Museum
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- 7,49 €
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- 7,49 €
Publisher Description
Harold Schechter revisits the chilling world of NEVERMORE in this historic murder mystery series starring Edgar Allen Poe. It's the spring of 1844, and Edgar Allan Poe and his young wife, Sissy, have moved to Manhattan, the publishing centre of America. When P.T. Barnum, the 'Prince of Humbugs', advertises a display of Davy Crockett's authentic belongings, Poe is determined to reveal the man as a fraud. He knows for a fact that he himself owns at least one of the items Barnum claims to possess. Poe and Barnum are drawn together over the controversy, and Barnum appreciates the publicity Poe's expose provides his show. But when his emporium is linked to a brutal murder that imitates a display in Barnum's hall of true crimes, Barnum enlists Poe's help in discovering the killer before the bad publicity ruins his business. Sissy believes it is the ghost of the original murderer who has returned to seek revenge, as he promised on the gallows. Poe thinks there's much more to the case, and he's determined to solve it. "Mystery lovers of all sub-genre persuasions will enjoy Harold Schecter's tale," writers Harriet Klausner. Originally published as "The Humbug".
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 1844 Edgar Allan Poe and his wife, Sissy, recently moved to New York, visit P.T. Barnum's American Museum only to become enmeshed in a grisly series of murders, in this lively historical whodunit. Curiosity about a dubious display of relics from the last stand at the Alamo of Davy Crockett, with whom he solved another set of murders a decade before in the author's first Poe mystery, Nevermore (1999), lures the truth-loving writer into a meeting with the redoubtable showman. Barnum has an explanation for that and everything else he offers up to entertain the public. " 'I know perfectly well that ordinary gorillas have no tails,' Barnum said, 'But that's what makes mine such a remarkable specimen!' " When Barnum's diorama of an infamous murder a woman, hands amputated, a rose in her mouth is re-created in flesh and blood, he hires Poe to help him find the killer. In the course of the chase every corner of the bizarre museum becomes familiar, and the cast of human oddities inside and out, such as Morris Vanderhorn ("it's as if he's got two faces, split right down the middle"), seems a perfect foil for the master of the grotesque and arabesque. Some readers may find the narrative, as if by Poe, a bit much "Somewhat stung by Sissy's unflattering characterization of me as a 'fuddy-duddy,' I opened my lips with the intention of delivering a spirited reply" but Schechter has fun with it (a highlight: Poe's encounter with a contemporary porn novel). You pay your nickel and you get entertained. FYI:Schechter is the coauthor, with David Everitt, of The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers.
