Very slow moving. Characters never came to life for me. It came across as the author showing how much he knew about Dante and famous literary people. I can appreciate some graphic material since it is a serial killer, but when you combine gruesome details with slow and plodding storytelling, it is just torturous for the reader.

I like smart books, but this is really a heavy load, overdone, endless sentences. You sense this author has potential, but I suggest you wait a few books.

There is a charm in writing fiction with real life people as its characters. There is a challenge to conceive a credible story, if they are famous with recorded history about them. There is a danger in involving them to solve a murder mystery. It is a double edged pen, when it is mightier than the sword. The pen should be used definitively without shearing or smearing history. And never too close to the writer's heart so that mundane thoughts and emotions get expressed from characters who are real life legends in the minds of the readers. One such false stroke, one swipe in the wrong direction, the writer is dead by the pen. The murder would be the book.

First time author Matthew Pearl does well to spin a good yarn without getting murdered by his book.

The narrative is winding at times and events take a while to build up for my impatience. Nevertheless the book is well researched and brings out the 19th century Boston with its mixed society very well in the narrative and conversation.

A detailed review is available at my website.

Renown authors/poets James Lowell, JT Fields, Oliver W. Holmes and Henry W. Longfellow are members of a literary organization known as "The Dante' Club". Dedicated to deciphering and translating Dante's works from Italian to English. These literary giants fight Harvard and others to reveal these works to a very resistant world.

While the 1800's saw Boston thriving and changing, it also saw an outbreak of distemper (that killed several horses thus successfully stalling transportation), the hiring of the first "mulatto" Boston police officer (which met resistance on and off the department), and a series of brutal murders that mimic those punishments issued in Dante's works. While they follow the clues, and try to protect their work and reputations, they find that everything is not as it appears, and everyone is a potential suspect.

Although I usually would not select a "period piece", when given this book to read, I gave it a chance. I thought that it was at least worth a 3.

We chose this book for our neighborhood Book Group. Of the 12 members, only three of us were even able to finish it. Very hard to get in to, most gave up before page 100. But, even those of us who keep going found it very plodding and tedious. A good plot, but, his writing style definitely got in the way of the story.