The Dante Club: A Novel

Exquisitely crafted mystery, which through fiction joins the Harvard group of writers who formed the first Dante's Club. This group surrounded Longfellow who published one of the first American translations of Dante's Divine Comedy and his fellow Dante Club members, Oliver Wendal Holmes, James Russel Lowe, George Washington Greene and his publisher James Fields.
These men painted so true to the characters brought to us from biography are at the center of the unraveling of a series of grisley murders that plague Boston the year prior to the publication of Longfellow's translation.
The tenor of this post civil war time is drawn so carefully that the reader is drawn into the the underbelly of the corruption, xenophobia, and conflicts that made up the early years of our history.

You should not expect to find a mere escapist tale in Mattew Pearl's The Dante Club. Because this is one mystery suspense masked by a high literary quotient that makes the reading of the book very challenging and yet completely satisfying.
This book takes you back to the 1800s, just as the first translation of Dante's famous Italian Poem The Divine Comedy is being done. The poem was truly translated in this period by a group of men belonging to what was then known as the Dante Club and later became the Dante Association.
But with his novel, Pearl has concoted an intricate murder mystery that is centered around the poem itself. Someone is killing men in Boston in a way very similar to that which is described in Dante's poem. Now this group of professors and literary men must discover the killer before the truth is unearthed and the poem becomes banned forever, as many have tried to do.
Pearl knows his way with words, and he knows how to craft a plot so restless and intriguing that it grabs its readers by the gut and keeps squeezing with each new page. And he is even able to give his reader somewhat of a small lecture on Dante throughout the novel, giving us long anlysis of the amazing poem (as told through the characters themselves).
I do not recommend this book to someone looking for a breezy read. The Dante Club is the kind of novel that you have to take your time reading. It is drenched in historical data, and factual annecdotes that aren't always obvious on the surface. The author's prose is both complicated and beautiful, almost poetic. He is able to give us a lot on Dante without ever denying us the thrills that should be delivered by a mystery tale.
The Dante Club is a great read that will leave you feeling both rewarded and exhilarated in the end.

What if 19th century writers Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell and Oliver Wendell Holmes, along with publisher James T. Fields, became involved in a mystery? The gentlemen, who have formed a "Dante Club" while Longfellow is translating The Divine Comedy, slowly become aware that recent Boston deaths are emulating the gruesome punishments in Dante's nine circles of Hell. Also investigating the brutal crimes is the first African-American police officer in Boston, Nicholas Rey. In the meantime, the Commission that runs Harvard is attempting to bar Lowell from teaching Dante, and indeed trying to get a translation of Dante quashed once and for all.

I found this a page-turner with all sorts of delightful insights into the writers portrayed, but be advised that Pearl has attempted to emulate the verbose style of 19th-century prose; the text contains multiple descriptions, literary allusions, Boston history, portraits of the writers and their families, and minute details of life in that era. It will not be for all tastes.

"The Dante Club" offers the reader an opportunity to visit Boston in 1865 in addition to an entertaining murder mystery.
Matthew Pearl's first novel has a wonderful premise. Real-life historical figures Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (poet), James Russell Lowell (poet), Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes (amateur poet), and J.T. Fields (publisher) form the Dante Club, whose goal is to help Longfellow publish the first American translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. Not only is Harvard College trying to halt the publication of this "trashy, foreign tripe," but a murderer is laying low some of Boston's elite in horrifying fashion . . . and the Dante Club realizes that the murders mirror the punishments Dante metes out in his "Inferno."
But who could be committing these murders? Who combines the scholar's knowledge of Dante and the brutal strength of arm and of will to mete out such barbaric punishment?
Soon, the Club is pursuing leads across Boston like a 19th century version of the Hardy Boys. Pearl throws in enough red herrings, dramatic revelations, and other twists and turns to keep the pages flipping quickly. A scholarly writer, Pearl also steeps the reader in historical detail, including the highly polished language of the principals to the vivid descriptions of Boston's streets and citizens.
Pearl also explores the personalities involved, from Longfellow's tortured genius to Oliver Wendell Holmes contentious relationship with his son, the future Supreme Court Justice. Pearl also creates a murderer who is awesome in brutality and also an object of some sympathy.
Through it all flows the Club's appreciation for the genius of Dante. Like most modern treatments, the focus is more on the Inferno than the other two books, the Purgatory and the Paradise, but Pearl makes this relatively narrow focus work.
An excellent debut novel, with more depth than your average page-turning thriller, "The Dante Club" shows that Pearl has a great deal of promise . . . his next work is eagerly anticipated!

Many books --mostly by young and debutant writers -- are released as a big promise. But, unfortunately, most of them are never able to fulfill it. So, it is a great pleasure to come across a book like Matthew Pearl's "The Dante Club". This novel is everything that it had promised and little bit more.
At this point, the plot is widely known. In 1865, a group of Bostonian scholars is translating Dante's masterpiece. While they are dealing with "Inferno" (Hell) a murderer is executing people based on the most terrifying scenes of this poem. This not only endangers lives, but also jeopardizes the translation itself.
Mixing real personalities and fictional characters, the writer creates a novel that if is not real, could have really happened. It is clear that Pearl has an eye for the macabre and it is very effective for this novel. He also makes a literary analyzes of Dante and the process of translation. Not a boring and inaccessible thing, but with his text he brings to light questions that many translators might have had --not only when it comes to Dante.
The process of humanization of historical figures works more than fine. They way they behave and think are quite real, and it is almost impossible to think that those events never happened. And, as Pearl states in an interview in the book, it is not required to be familiar with Dante's work. But, I think that those who don't know the Italian poem will feel very likely to read it --at least its "Inferno".
Thinking of "The Dante Club" comes to my mind another bestseller, "The Da Vinci Code". But while Dan Brown's novels lacks character development and profundity in the situations, Pearl has succeeded in creating a thriller that is bloody good, with believable characters and beautifully written. It also reminded me of Calleb Carr's "The Alienist", but, again, I think that "Dante" is much better. It is a winner.

Never having read more than a few snippets from Dante's Divine Comedy, I was a little apprehensive when I first started this book. I feared that my unfamiliarity with poetry in general, and Dante in particular, would soon leave me lost. I need not have worried. Pearl has crafted an entertaining tale as welcoming to long-time Dante / poetry scholars as it is to the uninitiated such as myself.

This book works better as historical fiction than it does as a pure murder mystery and in that sense, it is reminiscent of The Alienist and Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr. The book is at its best when it describes the various religious, economic and social issues confronted by Boston society in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. The mystery element of the book is not nearly as strong, however, and the motivations of the murderer remain somewhat nebulous even after he is unmasked. The story would have benefitted greatly from both a more thorough examination of the murderer's psyche and descent into madness and perhaps a more clever, dramatic ending. Still, I remained hooked until the very last page and I guess that is the ultimate test of any decent mystery novel.

A unique tale that should appeal to both students of medieval poetry and Civil War era history alike. The book has persuaded me to dust off my copy of The Inferno and renew my Civil War reading.

I was reluctant to pick up "The Dante Club" because for some reason I heard many comparisons to Dan Brown's productions. Recently though, I took it from the library and was very pleasantly surprised. I read it during one weekend, almost without stopping - it was so engrossing.

"The Dante Club" is a story of the first American translation of Dante's "The Divine Comedy" by a group of renowned poets and scholars: Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes and their publisher, Fields (calling themselves The Dante Club), located in Boston and Cambridge of the 1860s. The publication of the translation is opposed by the board of Harvard trustees, who believe it the devil's work. Conicidentally, or so it seems, people of prominence start to get murdered in strange ways all around the city. The intelligent, inquisitive Nicholas Rey, the first African American police constable, persists in his investigation, which leads him to the Dante Club...

The book does not remind me of Dan Brown at all. In fact, it has all the characteristics of a novel attractive for someone who likes literature, history, and mysteries. If anything, I would rather compare it to the New York mysteries written by Caleb Carr. Matthew Pearl is a Dante scholar himself and an editor of the Longfellow translation of "The Divine Comedy". I loved the portraits of the poets, little anecdotes (like that Holmes give the name "anaesthesia" to the process, invented at Harvard), maybe because, as a foreigner, I did not know much about them. The facts I could check (like the circumstances of Fanny Longfellow's death) were correct and the fictional traits of the characters made them very likeable (Holmes and Lowell are my favourites). As a bonus, I loved the fact, that the novel is set in Boston and Cambridge, my own surroundings now, and I can relate to the places described there. The reality of university life then (sometimes incredibly similar to the contemporary...) is described with utmost precision, the background is very well researched, there are really no flaws, which would prevent the reader from fully enjoying the novel.

"The Dante Club" is a very good first novel, the only indication that it is really a debut, are the dialogues - sometimes they sound a little awkward to my ear. It could also be shorter and end at the moment of finding the killer - it would be better for the plot; but overall, it is a remarkable achievement.

Other authors have written mysteries involving significant historical events and the ideas of masters of art, literature and science, but none have reached the combined intellectual capacity and success of Matthew Pearl.
Knowing Mr. Pearl's basic intelligence and educational background, further enhanced by his study and research of the literary project at hand, propels the reader into a confidence that the authenticity of stated factual matters is assured.
Yet, it is to Pearl's credit that he piques the reader's interest enough to encourage a "check," if you will, of at least a few of his quotations from Dante and the Dante Cantos. It is not so much for accuracy, but for the actual content. In my case, the Dante translation by Dorothy L. Sayers, was an interesting comparison to the Longfellow translation quoted by Pearl.
Pearl brings to life, the famous poets, Longfellow, Lowell and Holmes, three of five members of The Dante Club, who are dedicated to translating Dante's Inferno. His fictional characterizations take over the real and make them believable characters in a complicated plot. Their devotion to Dante and their translation of The Inferno is thwarted by vicious, horrifying murders occurring within the boundaries of Harvard - Cambridge. After multiple warnings and considerable thought, the Dante Club members realize the connection between the murders and The Inferno. No coincidence that the killer's timing and methods coincide with the completion of a particular canto translation. Can the scholars solve the mystery?
The Dante Club is not a "page turner" as most common, popular mysteries may be, but there is more to the novel than the mystery itself. The genius of the poets, particularly Dante, is evident. Dante's own personal visions of Heaven and Hell, of the soul, of sin and redemption, and of God, are issues in The Inferno. Pearl brings us to a better understanding of Dante himself by the creation of a Dantesque character.
Pearl also takes us into another side of the Civil War - a great cause, yet not an immediate gain for Negroes even after cease fire, Union victory, and emancipation. The bad consequences that man suffers are related to all wars - wars before the Civil War and wars after.
Pearl makes us think about the influence of literature upon the thoughts and actions of man. The printed word was the most influential in 1865, but today, the film and TV industries, computers, telephones, and ever increasing advances in high technology are all relevant factors in the development of our minds and characters. Sometimes, Pearl reminds us, the mind is warped by all those influences. Where do they lead us? Is this the real, the more serious mystery?

There are few things more enjoyable than a well written literary mystery, which is precisely what Matthew Pearl provides us in _The_Dante_Club_. In Pearl's debut work, we are treated to perhaps the unlikeliest detectives in post-Civil War Boston: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell. These poets, along with the help of other leading Boston intellectuals, provide both the backdrop and the energy for this riveting mystery.

Make no mistake; this is no ordinary parlor exercise. This adventure is equal parts Umberto Eco and Sherlock Holmes, with all that is occult and sinister revealed only through sheer scholarly effort. "The Dante Club" is a coterie of these Fireside Poets as they work to complete the first American translation of Dante's _Inferno_.

As prominent Boston citizens are discovered fatally tortured, The Dante Club join forces with Boston detectives to unravel clues that are discovered only through the combination of cool-headed logic and a deep understanding of Dante's work. The result is an intriguing look at the motives of a disturbed serial killer that is driven to kill through a combination of post-Civil War trauma and a dimentia that only the initiated can fathom.

The ambitious premise of this book is matched by Pearl's superb sense of pace and character development. While there is much that fascinates the reader about the poets that are working to unravel clues, what amazes most is how Pearl makes the life and work of Dante Alighieri a central character in this modern mystery. This is a remarkable debut, and I look forward to reading many more from this gifted writer.

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.

This novel should be a howler: The most prominent American poets of the 19th Century--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, along with their publisher, J.T. Fields--in a race against time to find a killer before he murders again. What reader in his or her right mind (even my mind) would be willing to suspend enough disbelief to swallow a premise like that?

But suspend away; author Matthew Pearl aptly takes you on a journey to post-Civil War Boston, a journey breathless with mystery, intrigue, brutality, and an unflinching wit--all wrapped tightly around the appreciation of Dante's "Divine Comedy." THE DANTE CLUB is Pearl's incredible debut novel, and through the author's fascinating and fluid prose the reader realizes immediately this writer has done his homework.

Even though Dante is maligned by the mainstream academia for his "papal" leanings, Longfellow and his contemporaries are obsessed to translate Dante's "Comedy" into English--to be the first translators to bring the epic poem to an American audience. As they translate, Boston suddenly becomes plagued by a series of the most gruesome, bloodchilling murders. . .murders that resemble the punishments of Hell in the pages of Dante. The poets, self-proclaimed members of the Dante Club, ally themselves with a maverick police officer and set off to find the killer--before the killer finds them.

THE DANTE CLUB is a marvelous, engrossing read. Pearl can flat out write; his prose, his descriptions, his character development, his dialogue, are masterful. While it may be a debut novel, Pearl writes like a seasoned veteran of page-turners. I look forward to enjoying even more of his work.

--D. Mikels, Author, WALK-ON

"The Dante Club" by Matthew Pearl is an astonishing first novel. This book is set in Boston just after the close of the Civil War. It combines literary and social history with a fictional serial murder plot, so it an ambitious and unique mix of genres.

The story takes place in 1865. The famous poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, is in the process of making the first-ever American translation of Dante's "Divine Comedy." He is aided in this endeavor by a group of close friends and fellow Dante scholars including Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Russell Lowell. As the scholars work together assisting Longfellow in refining his translation, a series of murders occur in the immediate area among people they know. Eventually, the scholars begin to realize that these murders appear to be copies of specific punishments taken directly from Dante's "Inferno." They realize that Dante's work is barely known in America. If there is a murderer mimicking Dante, obviously they would all be targets of suspicion. At first shocked and frightened, the scholars eventually realize that they must aid in the investigation to help prevent the next gruesome crime.

I thoroughly loved this book. I was transfixed by its gorgeous and vivid reconstruction of mid-19th century Boston life, culture, customs, and language. I was delighted with the way the author was able to bring to life three giants of American literature. Finally, I was astonished with the depth, breadth, and scope of the work. It was obvious that Pearl had thoroughly researched his subject and had a great deal to convey to the reader. I found the book very educational. I learned a great deal including: the structure, theme, and significance of Dante's "Divine Comedy;" the importance of poetry to all classes of people in the mid-19th-century America; the after-effects of the Civil War on a major northern city; the existence of rampant mid-19th-century class and racial conflicts; and the existence of internal political conflicts at what was then the Harvard Corporation concerning important issues of academic freedom, censorship, and freedom of the press, to name but a few.

Reading this book was a pure intellectual delight--a treat for the mind. I would not be honest if I did not note that the book does have some serious flaws, but overall, its brilliance outshines and overwhelms. Be forewarned: chief among the flaws is that the book is very difficult to get into. It took me many hours; I almost gave up, finding it all too gruesome and plodding. But finally, I was trapped--no, thoroughly enchanted, completely wrapped up in the suspense, and head-over-heels in love with the unequaled opportunity to become intimately acquainted with Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell.

Don't read this book if you are an avid mystery reader looking for another good historical who-done-it--you'll probably be disappointed. Do read this book if you enjoy historical fiction with a thorough dose of thought-provoking intellectual fodder, especially if you have a fondness for the beauty of great 19th-century prose and dialogue.

The Dante Club has an interesting premise and a few stellar moments, but not enough to recommend it. Overall, the pace is slow with too much time spent introducing minute particulars about the characters and not enough time spent developing the plot. (200 pages into the text the author has not moved the plot forward from the murder introduced on page 1.) The high point of the novel is a moving and evocative description of the horrors of the Civil War. Unfortunately, this appears toward the end of the book, after many difficult and painfully slow pages spent dwelling on the hairstyles and external ideosyncracies of the main characters. The poorly plotted opening 200 pages read rather like an MFA thesis or a first draft where the author is uncertain where to go next. Added to that, there are a few misappropropriations of language that kind of bugged me. (The one that springs to mind is where the author describes one character's face as "cruelly punctured by lobster eyes"--unfortunately evoking a rather bizarre image of an especially viscious lobster attack. Lest you think this is one of the book's exceptionally grotesque murders, I should note that I believe the author may have meant "punctuated" instead of "punctured" since no actual lobsters were involved.) I wish this book had lived up to its promise--a madman enforcing his own insane brand of "justice" by recreating Dante's punishments on the world's wrongdoers--but it didn't. Points to the author for great ideas, but the poor execution is a letdown. Maybe next time...

If you are familiar with the works of Longfellow, Holmes and Lowell, this will be an intriguing read in terms of how successfully (or otherwise) the author blends biography with the demands of the mystery genre. And if that is your approach, I suggest you stop reading this review and turn to others who share your historical and poetical tastes. Personally, I came to this novel purely as a mystery. The authenticity of the biographical details did not interest me; the characters only compelled me in terms of their credibility vis-a-vis the narrative. In those terms, the novel's successes are Pearl's sense of time and urgency; the dialogue is persuasively Victorian and the pace moves along briskly. Where biography encroaches on fiction is in the character of Longfellow - too much weight is given to his existence, as though the characters were looking over their shoulders from an advanced period in time, acutely aware of the legacy this poet would leave to American society. 'Looking over one's shoulder at the past' being a particular motif of Longfellow's, these nudge-wink references might stir the juices of the poet-academic readers, who will get chills from the multi-layered prose. For the reader looking for a good bedside read or page-turner for the long-haul flight, this is a bit too obscure. The reverence with which the other characters treat Longfellow is absurd, even if you have background knowledge on the historical figure. For those who have the time, interest and concentration to invest on the prose, this is a good buy, but for those looking for a good mystery and nothing else, look elsewhere.

In 1865, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow began his momentous translation of Dante's Divine Comedy, assisted by his friends and fellow writers Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and publisher JT Fields. Opposed every step of the way by Harvard University who saw Dante as a disruptive foreign taint and a Papal influence, the college Board threatened to cancel Lowell's Dante classes to prevent this intrusion of an Italian poet, whom some dared heretically compare to their own mighty Shakespeare, as the best poet in any language.The War is over, Lincoln has been assassinated, and Boston is startled to find itself becoming assailed by a criminal element. This is the background for the story.

When a murder is discovered and the victim is a well-known judge, the police have more then enough reason to solve the case as soon as possible. After the second murder occurs, they still haven't put two and two together enough to realize the same killer is at work, but by the third death... It's only when the members of the Dante Club, as the little group of translators have begun to call themselves, stumble upon the fact of the victims having a close relationship to the victims in several of the Hells mentioned in Dante's poem that they come to the conclusion the killer is using the Commedia as his guide to who to kill and how to do it. That he is therefore an educated man, and perhaps one of their own, a teacher, a reader of Italian, is a frightening thought. That the police may accuse one of the Dante Club of being the killer seems more than likely. The only man on the force who seems to know what's going on is Officer Rey, the city's first and only African-American policeman, and he's hobbled by bureaucratic prejudice. The Danteans feel it's their duty to find the killer before one of them is taken away in chains.

This is definitely a "murder mystery" but it's also a literary novel. I enjoyed all the little references made by the great men themselves, though I wonder if perhaps those very items might be lost on the general reading public. The backgrounds given of Holmes and the others as to their personal lives, eccentricities, shortcomings, and successes and failures made the poets come alive though once in a while those same points of interest seem such a digression as to lose the train of the story. The struggles of the police department against outside pressures, corruption from within, and its own ineptness are pointed out in great detail. As to the ending...the police want a quick closure, to get the cases out of the public eye. They railroad a not-so-innocent man for the crime. Though the killer is caught, the story ends in such a way it raised some questions in my mind. Was the accused man still executed for the crimes he didn't commit? It certainly seemed so. Did the public ever learn who actually did them and why? Again that appeared to be the case. Or did I miss something?

This was a very enjoyable book, revealing a great deal about the workings of the great university and how its control extended past the halls of academe into the city itself, how even the famous who taught within its hallowed walls could be held under its iron thumb to a certain extent and what happened to those who rebelled against it. I opened the first page expecting an entertainment; I finished satisfied I'd found it.

I look forward to find and reading The Poe Shadow also.

The premise is that the first American translator of Dante, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and his literary fellows (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. and others), in the course of their translation work become aware that a serial murderer is patterning his crimes after scenes from Inferno. The catch is that Dante is largely untranslated on these shores -- making Longfellow and Co. themselves prime suspects, a fact which, if revealed to the police would incriminate them and put their beloved (as yet unfinished) translation in jeopardy. So poet/intellectuals must turn sleuths.

It's a well-written piece of historical fiction, drawing on the real life successes and tragedies of these nineteenth century figures and set against a country still in exhaustion from the terrors of the Civil War. Pearl actually does work (unlike, say Dan Brown) to flesh out his characters. Details like the tragic deaths of Lowell's and Longfellow's wives add richness, and Boston and Cambridge are vividly depicted.

On the other hand, the solution to the whodunnit seemed a tiny bit of a cheat. (But I won't give any spoilers.)

Pearl is a member of the current day successor to Longfellow's "Dante Club," the Dante Society of America. Knowing the little I know about both Dante and Longfellow's time, the novel rang pretty true.

An enjoyable way to pass the time.

This book is reminiscent of The Alienist by Caleb Carr. Both books take famous figures from the past and surround them with serial killers that seem ripped from present headlines. Both are excellent reads, thrillers that keep you turning the pages, and you walk away from each having spent an enjoyable number of hours and with a few new facts about city life in the end of the 19th century.
Both also turned my stomach at times with their VERY graphic descriptions of the murder victims. (I was eating lunch as I started to read about the Dante Club murderer's 3rd victim - mutltitasking recommended if you're hoping to shed a few pounds).
While Carr's book had me on the edge of my seat when I first read it - The Dante Club was still very enjoyable though a bit easier to set down. The writing is smooth and clear, the characters drawn well enough, and the description of life in Boston during that time period very interesting. I especially liked the character of Nicholas Rey - and was disappointed by the narrowing of his role as the book moved into the 2nd half.
Having not read Dante's Inferno, I was scrambling a bit at first, but once the book neared it's climax, my ignorance seemed not to matter.
A worthwhile read - and if Pearl writes another - I'll pick that one up as well.

In late winter, the name Matthew Pearl started to become somewhat well known in the Boston area. He was a Harvard graduate and studied law at Yale, impressive credentials to say the least. He was also fascinated with the writings of the Italian poet Dante. His enthusiasm for Dante was almost contagious, and before long, his first book The Dante Club was a bestseller in Boston and around the country. Since the author studied law, it can be assumed that he at least planned on practicing law. This book demonstrates both why he should and should not practice law. Pearl�s ability to get into the criminal mind of his murderer would make him a either a successful defense attorney or a feared prosecutor. The murders in the book are rather gruesome, and are based on people damned to Hell in Dante�s poem The Inferno. Pearl is able to make the murders logical in the mind of the murderer, but baffling to the unlikely investigators on the case�a biracial police officer whose ability to investigate is severely hampered by prejudice, and members of Boston�s literary elite (and you thought Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was only a writer?). Pearl should not practice law because he should be at work researching and writing his next novel. Pearl�s writing style is complex, but very rich in detail. It is almost as if he labored over every sentence. The historical details alone make the book a interesting. Native Bostonians and those familiar with the city will enjoy the references to actual people and places and appreciate the way in which old Boston, with its strengths and flaws, comes to life.
Those looking for a quick and easy murder mystery to read at the beach this summer will probably be disappointed with this book. It is not a book that is read in one sitting or in a casual manner. It is a book to be savored. When the reader finishes the book, he/she does feel as if something has been accomplished, and may actually feel like a sleuth. Readers will no doubt be impressed with the efforts of a gifted young writer who is certain to be a part of the literary scene for years to come.

The city of Boston is shocked and its police force stumped by the murder of two prominent citizens in 1865. Through forensic analysis and knowledge he shares with Henry Wadwsorth Longfellow and James Russell Lowell, two of the few Americans who have read Dante, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes realizes the victims died in the macabre manner of sinners in "Inferno".
Incredibly, Matthew Pearl has crafted a novel that brings Dante to life along with three men who today are portraits hung on Harvard's walls and names on its buildings. In 1865 Holmes, Longfellow and Lowell were prominent members of the Harvard community at odds with Augustus Manning, the omnipotent head of the Harvard Corporation. As Pearl launches the three scholars on a mission to solve the bizarre chain of murders, their conversations portray a formality appropriate to the times and their stature, yet their manner and actions are more believable than what you'll read in a lot of modern crime fiction.
Pearl also uses his fiction to provide a quick primer on Dante's life and works. You might want to read his introduction to Longfellow's translation of "Inferno" (it's in the excerpt that appears on the store.com) to discover how Longfellow became preoccupied with Dante in the early 1860s. There really was a Dante Club, a group of friends who gathered at Longfellow's house most Wednesdays to read and critique a canto or two.
On top of this historical and literary backdrop, Pearl builds an intriguing plot that takes the scholars and his readers through all strata of post Civil War Boston and Cambridge. The end result is an exceptionally well-crafted mystery accompanied by an interesting peek into the lives of Dante, Longfellow and the academic elite of the late 19th century - an ambitious first novel that lives up to its promise.

The book is definitely ambitious: it's got well known historical figures as protaganisists, a general introduction to Dante's life and to the Inferno, a breif detour into the madness of war, and a simultaneous accounting of the injustices of racial politics in post-civil war law enforcement, religious opposition to freedom of expression, and cold blooded murder.

The casualty of all that ambition is depth. This was especially clear in the Dante Club members. Although they seemed accurately portrayed in terms of demeanor and appearance, their dialog is so formal and stilted, and their personalities so one-dimensional that they seem nearly robotic. I found it difficult to care much about them. Depth was also a problem in the (extremely graphic) descriptions of the murders, where despite the gore, its difficult to determine whether characters in the book are more upset by the torture or the prospect that Italian may be dropped from the Harvard curriculum.

Some of the stories in the book play better than others. If the ambitious patrolman that occupies a corner of the book could have been its center, and if the skeleton of the mystery could have occupied as much of the book as it deserved, I think it could have been an outstanding read.

In the end, it felt like the book was a bigger beast than Pearl could tame. Despite its issues, the story at the core of the novel is a pretty well executed whodunit, where the strength of the plot, especially in the last half of the book, carry the story past patches of stiff writing.

I picked up this book at the bookstore simply because the name and the cover looked interesting. Reading the back made me decide to buy it. I'm a big fan of historical fiction that works in literary figures (for example, the movie version of the graphic novel "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"), and the synopsis of the book on the back talked about how "America's first Dante scholars - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and J.T. Fields" formed The Dante Club where they worked together to translate Dante's Inferno into English and ended up working together trying to solve a murder (or three). Although reading parts of the book were tough because I haven't read any Dante (and I do want to now), I really enjoyed it and highly suggest it to anyone who likes to read (and likes to read about the authors they've read about). Pearl's discussions of the poets and their personalities was highly entertaining, and I would bet that they were pretty historically accurate, based on the discussion of the research that he did for the book. What's interesting about this book, to me, is that Pearl graduated Harvard in 1997, won the Dante Prize from the Dante Society of America in 1998, and graduated Yale Law in 2000. Really now, what do you do after that?

The book is well summed up in the other reviews - briefly it's a story of famous post-civil war poets who translate the works of Dante only to find themselves in a murder mystery. I was not put off by the premise at all, rather that is the strength of the story, watching men who were not detectives using their literary knowledge to solve crimes.

The trouble with the book is that the story is painfully slow at first and told in a flowery style that requires a lot of concentration. Unfortunately this combination is the perfect sleep-inducer and I did indeed put this book down and go to sleep a few times.

In the second half things do pick up and at times the book is something of a page-turner. If you are considering reading this book you'll have to decide if you want to invest the time and effort slogging through the first half in order to enjoy the second.

The other major criticism I have is that although I had spent a considerable amount of time with the main characters I never developed much of a feeling for them. Even at the end I was having to remind myself which poet belonged to which background. This may be partially because getting through the initial portion of the book was so difficult - while the author was developing the characters I was busy staying awake.

As others have mentioned the author clearly has a love for history but this wasn't enough to rescue the book. It's an average novel but there is so much better stuff out there.

This week I finished reading The Dante Club, and I was blown away by it. I love Longfellow. The park rangers do a wonderful job conducting tours; it is easy to see that they have a real fondness for Longfellow. However, the author was able to take it one step further and bring the man and his circle of friends to life once again. The book is beautifully written, and I enjoyed the unusual luxury of savoring it slowly. Yes, the maggots did disgust me; but the rest of the book was such perfection that I was willing to deal with them just so I could keep reading. I really liked the personalities of the characters and the action of the story itself. It was very disappointing when I reached the end, not because of the actual ending, but because my fun was over! However, I discovered that my disappointment could be assuaged by reading it all over again! Something I don't ever remember doing before. That coupled with a willingness to share it with friends, but this time assuring them that I want my book returned to me, puts it in a very special category. Finding myself so thoroughly enthralled by the book, I would be remiss if I did not convey my admiration. Mr. Pearl deserves congratulations on a job well done!

THE DANTE CLUB takes place in 1865 Boston, and Matthew Pearl does a great job re-creating that time period for the reader. In particular, he does a good job informing the reader of how American intellectuals thought and acted during the post-Civil war period. I learned a lot from this novel, and am now more interested in this era of US History.

Unfortunately, THE DANTE CLUB also tries to be a thriller of sorts, and I don't think it succeeds very well at that level. The plot moves too slowly and is bogged down with too much historical detail. Pearl tries to write in the antiquated prose of the 19th century, and as a modern reader I found this style very difficult to get into.

Also, the four members of the Dante Club are ultimately quite bland -- most of them are privileged, wealthy members of the elite. I found them historically interesting, but not particularly likable. The mulatto policeman is the most intriguing character, but he's not in the novel enough to establish a real presence.

Unfortunately, the lack of good characters leads to an real absence of drama. As a result, there is little in this book that engages the readers emotional interest. I suspect many will find this book boring, and many of the negative the store reviews reinforce this point.

I would mainly recommend this novel to people with an intellectual interest in this historical period. If you're looking for a fast-paced DA VINCI CODE experience, or an intense drama with compelling characters, you will most likely be disappointed with this book.

I heard the abridged audio version of this book on the way to New Orleans. I hope the disappointments I have are a result of leaving too much out and not what's actually in the complete novel. The story's OK, the detail is interesting, the mood is engaging. I just couldn't get into the thing enough to sit in my car and listen after I'd got back to the hotel. I often found I was waiting for 4:00 so I could switch to All Things Considered. But I finished it. It wasn't bad.
I had two big beefs. The big one has to do with the trendy conceit of having a team of famous historical characters -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Longfellow and the like -- solving a murder. Yeah, that's what I thought, too -- I kept cringing when I would automatically think of Sherlock, then try to wrench my mind back to Oliver Wendell. And a poet going over bloody crime scenes? Kind of a conceited conceit. I just couldn't really get into the characters because of the nonsequitur-ness of the idea.
The other was the choppiness of the story. Maybe it was just a sloppy job of abridgement, but there were a number of places where some meat was missing. Only a couple of key details (there are definitely worse abridgements out there), but some of the flow was ruined.
It wasn't bad. If you're at Cracker Barrel, and the choice is between the same Mary Higgins Clark you listened to last trip, Dianetics, and The Dante Club, Dante is an easy pick, and it will be worth the listen. There are better ones out there, though.
Quick: the first chapter of Dante's real Inferno is on the last disk. Just a teaser, but enough to really see the attraction. The reader is obviously as thrilled about it as I am, does a much more convincing job on this small bit than any of the main part of the novel. Can't wait to read it!

Amid the murder, mayhem and madcap antics of the decidedly less-than-Fantastic four, Pearl does an exceptional job of painting a vivid landscape of the gritty underbelly of a city that claimed to be the Athens of America. Boston was the home of Harvard, Emerson, Longfellow and other giants that helped to forge the uniquely American intellectual movements of transcendentalism, Unitarianism and Yankee pragmatism. These elites, however, sailed their gossamer vessels on the sea of the unwashed masses. Their supposed Athens, as recounted by Pearl, was a façade masking a culture that institutionally excluded Irish and Italian immigrants, approved of unabashedly racist cops, and took aggressive measures to limit or even eliminate what they felt to be the corrupting influence of the Catholic Church. He masterfully weaves his tapestry while avoiding sermons or the grinding of axes. Like a disciplined historian, he paints an objective portrait of Boston without judging it by 21st Century standards and values. His use of racist slang and attitudes clearly is designed to recreate the mores of the time rather than offend the reader or spark debate and controversy....

This is a great book, but not one inclined to lead to multiple readings. It is a single bottle of the above-mentioned champagne. As pleasurable as such a bottle may be, however, once it is corked and consumed it is gone forever and likely the euphoria it offered not repeated. Such is the case with Pearl's book. As much as I loved reading it and savored the exhilaration it offered, once the climax was reached and the plot concluded, I was left with merely an empty bottle and some very fine memories. A good book might be like a fine bottle of champagne, but a great work of literature is like an entire vineyard, yielding an abundant harvest after each labor. It is a blossoming gift that yields a lifetime of pleasures. A mystery novel, even one as carefully and lovingly constructed as this, cannot yield ever-increasing returns. Once the mystery, motive and murderer are revealed the interest naturally wanes. The champagne bubbles are released into the air and vanish. The best one can do is pour a glass and lament that such a delight cannot last forever.

READ THE ENTIRE REVIEW AT INCHOATUS.COM

The neat thing about reading Matthew Pearl is that you do not have to be familiar with his style, don't have to be well-versed in what he has written previously. This is Pearl's first book! There is an excitement in that, for me. Like diving into a pool without testing the water first.

The author is a graduate of Harvard and Yale Law School and a Dante scholar.

The book is about a series of truly horrific and grisly murders that take place in Boston in the 1860's, and specifically, in and around the "Boston Brahmin" society of the day. In the first one, after being somewhat bludgeoned (but not to death) a judge is eaten alive by maggots. Uh-huh!

In the next murder, a minister is buried upside down, and his feet, which are sticking out of the ground, are set aflame.

This other guy gets severely (and I mean, quite really severely) sliced up into ribbons and is left hanging like a side of beef in this deserted castle type place.

Doesn't this all sound wonderfully beach blankety?

Truthfully, there is a lot of gore in the book. No doubt. But the plot of the book turns upon the fact that the authorities are baffled as to any connectible evidence regarding these crimes. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to motive.

Little do they know that this wild spate of violence is in fact, motivated by reason and rhyme!

The killer has been fashioning his crimes based upon the punishments described in Dante's Divine Comedy (specifically the "Inferno" section), and at the same time, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow has been engaged in the production of the English translation of Dante. This is where Pearl's novel dovetails with history.

At this time in Boston society, there was a Dante Club. It consisted of Longfellow, J.T. Fields, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and George Washington Greene. They were literary giants in their own right, who met as friends frequently, and officially met once a week to discuss that portion of the Dante translation that was currently being completed by the leader, the venerable Longfellow.

As the murders continue to wreak havoc and mayhem and incite terror in the populace, these scholars become embroiled in the case.

All leads lead to Dante! Since Dante's work was virtually unknown in America at the time, this band of bookish litterati emerge as the only hope in deciphering the connections, anticipating the killer's next move, and zeroing in on his/her identity. They alone possess the esoteric wherewithal to link the details of the crime with the epic poem itself.

Even though we as readers are on the inside track, the ending is shocking. A surprise.

Pearl blends a wealth of historical fact with this debut novel, but the thing is so wonderfully embellished that I would hesitate to call it "historical fiction." I would rather call it an intelligent, thrilling, whodunit! It has been compared to Caleb Carr's The Alienist and equated with the scholarly density of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose.

It is my pick for a dangity-good summer read!

If this book were pasta, it would be al dente!

Done just right! Ready to serve!

My hope is that Matthew Pearl will abandon his career in law and focus on writing one hundred more novels.

Don't we have enough lawyers?

If you have seen the movie SE7EN, think NINE.

This book is another of the intellectual offereings we have been seeing recently (such as Rule of Four), but this one feels that after years of work that it was rushed into print with inadequate editting, possibly on the theory that intelligent readers would tolerate inaccessibly dull writing.

Wrong. If this book had sought to be published in the 1860s, publisher J T Fields would have told the author to bring the manuscript back once he had managed to breathe some life into it. The book is pompous, precious, alternately pedantic and predestrian, and always ponderous. I almost gave up before page 100, but I persisted whilst muttering, 'There had better be a payoff.'

Actual 19th century authors such as Edgar Allen Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, Joseph Conrad, and Harvard Alumnus Richard Henry Dana sketched their surroundings and moved right into their stories. Their books are lively and fascinating, even the non-fiction.

This does not happen within the pages of The Dante Club. The tale immediately bogs down with repetitive minutia and endless detail. To be fair, I don't think the author is showing off his impressive knowledge, but rather I imagine he wants us to microscopically experience every nuance of the Boston of 150 years ago. Unfortunately, in real life, the human brain doesn't work that way- it picks up patterns, but not reams of minute details.

Still intent on wanting us to understand, the author hits us not once, or even twice, but often three times or more with introductions and reintroductions. At one point I found myself wondering what the difference was between a horsecar and a horse-drawn omnibus, but my next thought was a fear that if asked, the author would take all evening to explain it.

Contrarily when it comes to motivations, we aren't adequately filled in as to compelling reasons that the Harvard Corporation wants to stop Longfellow's translation of Dante. Yes, we are told that non-classical Italian is considered an inferior language and yes, we are told Dante has a papist view, but we aren't made to *feel* why this is so critical. 'Modern' readers in one century often find the motives and tenants of an earlier century inexplicable, and here we aren't particularly helped to understand.

Another problem, which is arguably the essence of the book, is endless 19th century name-dropping. I suspect that many of the secondary and tertiary characters are real names, which is okay, but we are treated not only to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell, but we (and the story) are stopped to meet other figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Mayor Lincoln of Boston.

Because of this, the figures fail to come to life. To be sure, Lowell coughs and gasps and almost manages to come into his own, and his brief witty debate is wonderful, but ultimately he becomes a victim to the oppressive descriptive detail. Holmes also chokes and sits up occasionally, but his character is portrayed as being so petty and shallow that the reader cares little.

The incredible exception is, of all people, a black policeman, Nicholas Rey. Here, Matthew Pearl abandons the pretentious name-brand poets and politicians and actually crafts a person on his own. The astonishing result is that Pearl shows us more in common with a struggling black man than all the authors he has worked to study. Pearl's fictional Nicholas Rey is much more *real* than Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell, and Emerson, and those pages are the best in the book.

As hard as I've been on The Dante Club, I'd like to see the author try again. I encourage the author to not just study literature, but to study writing. Give us another intelligent book, this time one that is approachable, accessible, and readable.

In Boston of 1865, a group of scholars translates Dante's Divine Comedy from Italian to English. As the poets Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and their publisher J.T. Fields, debate the merits of words, a brutal killer inks Dante in blood. And just as Dante stepped in Hell on his way to redemption, the Bostonian Brahmins (with help from the mulatto Patrolman Nicholas Rey) trail the series of the meticulously planned and horrifically executed murders in search of their own souls.

The Dante Club, in its florid language and diverse characters, takes us back to a post Civil War America. Pearl skillfully weaves gory details of cruelty in a soothing blanket of good manners and poetic declarations. In a city priding itself on its educated elite, battles range between politicians and poets, traditionalists and liberals, sailing in a mist of violence. The Dante Club is an elegantly written story of sin, justice, and the power of words.

After the Civil War, the United States found itself in a rather tumultuous time, wherein racial issues, criminal issues, and even literary issues came brimmed up in a boiling pool of distrust. As America's first internationally renown poet, Longfellow, began translating Dante's Divine Comedy, he faced difficulty from both the conservative and progressive sides of society, the conservative saying Dante's poem was too Catholic and the progressive saying it was too judgemental.

This is the backdrop to this historical fiction written by Matthew Pearl. While a collection of poets, editors, and historians attempt to bring the Divine Comedy finally to the American literate, a series of murders based on the Inferno sends the city of Boston into a panic. Complicating the issue is the Harvard Corporation, which will do anything it can to stop the translation of Dante from reaching the printers; a post-war city full of tired and bitter veterans; a police department fractured over the controversy of a mulatto policeman; and the own characters' personal demons.

Whereas the mystery/thriller genre tends to be a little cliched, Matthew Pearl's approach to literary analysis and recreating the issues of the times sends the usual standard into spiralling chaos. Also, his well-researched look into the psyches of these famous characters (whose names should be recognizable to most literature enthusiasts) makes it all the more interesting, for these are not just arbitrary characters, but people who have done so much for American literature. Finally, the primary focus, Dante, is consistantly used in amazing ways, both as a force of obsession and as a medium for Mr. Pearl to provide literary analysis.

It's a certainly well-done read. If anything's wrong with it, it's that the tone of the book still feels a bit modern, but honestly that is more nit-picky than any real loss in quality, for the story itself is breathtakingly detailed and multidimensional. The work needs no style, the substance speaks for itself, but yet it's still stylish in it's modernist thriller way.

I have read The Divine Comedy, but one needn't have to get into this book. However, a final good note about this book: it makes the reader want to read or reread the Comedy themselves, along with exploring into other sources such as Longfellow, Tennyson, and Holmes. Even Emerson has a guest-appearance which is both perfectly constructed and serves as some very good comedic relief.

--PolarisDiB

Pearl attempts to create a story and a structure that is enormously challenging...Dante, famous poets, The Civil War, etc. For the most part, he is successful. However, the second half of the novel slides into DaVinci Code-like, made-for-Hollywood cliches.

I think Pearl demonstrates tremendous courage in writing this novel. It's extraordinarily difficlut to craft something this intricate. For the most part, he is successful. But towards the end, this novel simply runs out of gas. It's as if Pearl couldn't sustain the momentum any longer. This makes the serial killer explanation towards the end a bit far fetched.

Overall, I would highly recommend this novel. It's entertaining, interesting, and complex. Just don't be surprised if the ending leaves you wanting a bit more of what you read in the beginning.

No spoilers

The Dante Club is basically the definition of a so-so murder mystery. Basically, the foremost experts in the study of Dante's Divine Comedy work together to try to stop a murder who punishes his victims in real life, the same way Dante punishes sinners in his poem. The problem with this book is that it does absolutely nothing to stand out from any other murder mystery. While reading this, I found myself reading just for the sake of getting to the end, and not because I really cared about any of the characters, what happened to them, or who the killer was and why he was doing what he was doing. Although I can't say that I was actually bored at any point in this reading, I can say that I just wasn't particularly interested either.

The bottom line is that this book can be skipped over. Furthermore, if you like the premise of this book (Dante's poem being invoked for murder and using it to figure clues out) I HIGHLY recommend The Last Cato by Matilde Asensi. You can check out my review of it for more details, but think how Dan Brown used da Vinci's works to get clues behind something major, and that's what Asensi does with Dante. It's one of my favorite books of the genre, and I suggest checking it out over The Dante Club anyday.

Matthew Pearl's period mystery is set in Boston in 1865, just after the end of the Civil War and the assassination of President Lincoln. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and George Washington Greene make up the Dante club, a group of poets/writers whose sole mission is to bring Dante Alighieri and his Divine Comedy to the United States. The only problem is that the Harvard Corporation, who employs most of the men, is set firmly against the publication, saying that Dante was a blasphemous, amoral, bitter man who used his writing to serve as vengeance for wrongs done to him throughout his life. The Harvard Corporation will do whatever is necessary to stop the Divine Comedy from hitting American bookstores, and the Dante club is just as firm in its mission to translate and publish Dante's masterpiece. But then, another problem surfaces: there is a murderer on the loose in Boston, and his murders are very reminiscent of Dante's punishments meted out in the Divine Comedy. Knowing that these murders being connected to Dante could ruin their chances to publish him, the Dante club sets out to stop the murderer before the appropriate authorities put the pieces together and say that Dante inspires murderers.

A pretty cool plot, I must say. Pearl has based basically everything except the murderer on real history, and the novel is fairly suspenseful for a period piece. The only real problems that I had with The Dante Club was my lack of caring for the characters. Throughout the novel, I never felt like I truly cared for the characters, and I was sort of apathetic when some of them were placed in danger. It isn't for lack of effort that the characters didn't connect. Pearl does a good job of providing some sort of background for all the men, and therefore explaining their motivations and fears. Unfortunately, I felt that the best character development was saved for the big reveal of the murderer at the end. Once the murderer is revealed, the reader gets about a whole chapter explaining the character's life up until the point that led to the murders to start occurring.

The book's few violent scenes are very grisly and graphic. The punishments written of in The Divine Comedy truly are sadistic, and Pearl makes sure that the reader understands just how horrible these punishments really are, especially when they are enacted on someone that you know. But between the scenes where the murders are in the forefront, the book had some major pacing issues for me, and I think it all goes back to the fact that I just had trouble caring about the characters. Some great scenes midway through the novel are intersected by scenes that seem to be pointless dialog between the main characters that has no bearing on the horrible events at hand.

Overall, I did enjoy the book, and I am glad I read it. I think it could have been much better, however. It felt like Pearl had condensed the novel just a little too much. A book that seemed like it should have been around 600 pages was only 367, and I think that with a little more time devoted to the characters, it would have gone a long way toward making the book better as a whole.

Last night I finished The Dante Club, by Matthew Pearl. This was a novel recommended by my father. The premise of the story was indeed intriguing.

Set in 1865 Boston, our main characters are actual historical figures: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, J. T. Fields, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. These literary masters are collaborating together to translate Dante's Commedia into English, amidst the opposition of the more conservative Board of Directors at Harvard College. Their "Dante Club" becomes involved in so much more, however, when gruesome murders occur among Boston's elite.

These murders bear a horrifying similarity to the punishments Dante invisions in his Inferno, his journey into Hell. The Club begins a race with the murderer, whom they name "Lucifer", in a frantic effort to find him before he kills again.

This novel had many twists and turns, and I was surprised in the end! Pearl is a very detailed writer. The content of his novel, having one foot in history and the other in fiction, requires a delicate balance of explanation and story-telling. It was not a quick read, and not a book where I could allow my mind to wander at all as I read. There were times when Pearl's descriptive powers were almost overwhelming, as he described the sickening murders.

So I would recommend this book with reservations. If you have an affinity for the great American poets, for ancient literature (namely Dante's Divine Comedy), for a wickedly complicated mystery, and a strong stomach, you will be drawn into The Dante Club, and find yourself caught up in the emotions of the group just as I was.

Karina Harris, author of "Second Chance"

First things first: if you enjoyed Caleb Carr's THE ALIENIST, Doctorow's THE WATERWORKS, and/or Erik Larson's THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY, you will likely enjoy THE DANTE CLUB. If you like your mysteries well constructed, with careful novelistic attention to setting, character and themes, you will like this book. If once upon a time you were a lit major, THE DANTE CLUB is your next guilty pleasure.

THE DANTE CLUB was (and is; it evolved into the contemporary Dante Society) a very real entity, a circle of the literary celebrities of Boston who gathered weekly to discuss Longfellow's ongoing translation of Dante's "The Inferno," a project he took up as a distraction from the profound grief of losing his beloved wife Fanny to an accidental death he tried and could not prevent, a fire caused by hot sealing wax. In 1865, the year in which the novel's action takes place, there is no American translation of Dante's masterpiece available, and few citizens, except the educated upper class who traveled and appreciated literature, were familiar with Italian and works composed in that language. The powers that be, represented by Harvard politics, discouraged the study of modern languages and all but classical literature. Dante's work was written in a "vulgar" language and was too Catholic for the Boston upper crust of the 19th century. So, when a series of murders mimicking the punishments dolled out in Dante's vision of hell turn up in Boston, the list of suspects is rather lean. Longfellow, poet James Russell Lowell, historian George Washington Green and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. get mixed up in the intrigue, which is rife with reversals and tight spots for our heroes.

Pearl takes his time carefully reconstructing the era and the personages; in fact, some might be unaccustomed to the level of detail and description in the first quarter of the book, but it is worth sticking out. He writes knowingly and with confidence, creating a very enriching, multidimensional portrait of the era and place, and his injection of Dante and his work does not seem contrived. The imagined crimes and their solution are justified. I would never have pegged Longfellow or his circle as action figures but it all works.

With the popularity and interest of Dan Brown's the "Da Vince Code," a new genra of hisortrical literary fiction has cropped up in American literature. While the "Rule of Four" by Caldwell misses my mark, the Dante Club by Mark Pearl, in my view, brings this genra to a new level.

Set just after the American Civil War in the City of Boston, a group of well known poets and literary giants get together to translate the Itialian Dante's Inferno into English. Peal makes this fun and understandable when he writes in a murder mystery with some significant twists and turns to keep the reader interested.

Peal's writing leaves a vivid image of Oliver Wendell Homes Sr. and Henry Wadsworth Longfello running in the streets of Boston to chase down the unimaginable "lucifer" who is killing as they trasnslate Dante's Inferno into English. In the notes at the end of the book, Peal states that in the novel he attempts to keep close to the historical record and he fulfills that promise as the story unfolds.

The book is well written, historically enriched and, most important, enjoyable. Dan Brown, the author of hit novel the "Da Vince Code," comments that Peal is the "new shinning star of literary fiction...". He is! If you liked the "Da Vince Code," you'll love this one.

This book probably falls into the category of a thriller, but it is oh so much more. It is literate and poetic, but in a dynamic way. There are threads of poetry running from Dante to Longfellow and his friends who are some of the greatest minds of their day.
They are the most unlikely of heroes, but I loved their characters. They may be getting on a bit in years, but they are clever, brave and resourcful in tracking down the fiend who murders his victims using methods of punishment taken from Dante's inferno. These are also people who have a great friendship and affection for each other and you feel part of that circle of friends.
I had many theories as to the identity of the murderer, but I truly didn't guess who it was until the exciting climax of the book.
I did not want the book to end and I have been making up for that by reading poems by Longfellow that I had forgotten that I knew. These include his wonderful translation of the Divine Comedy.

Pearl creates a portal for you to step through, if you dare. You'll end up in a post-Civil War Boston that reeks of history, erudition, and fantasy, where you will sup with a menagerie of characters (both famous, from Longfellow to Holmes, and refreshingly original, in Patrolman Rey and young Dan Teal) that will lead you through a tightly plotted-out story and discover crimes horrible enough to pay homage to Dante while remaining scarily possible.
This is a novel that deserves all the clichés of each new writer that arrives: from "refreshing the mind of a now cynical reader" to "swooping in with a completely original twist" and from "weaving a web of intrigue through strong writing and research" to "a true phenomenon, one that will live on through the ages."
There is no book more deserving of a good, willing reader.

In 1867 Dante Alighieri's THE DIVINE COMEDY was almost banned in Boston.
History tells us that Harvard College's academic community worked feverishly to prevent the publication of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's first American translation of THE DIVINE COMEDY. The powerful Brahmins considered the book to be a blasphemous and insidiously dangerous work --- a scandalous tome that would corrupt readers and lead them into perdition. Matthew Pearl uses this historical event as his canvas to flesh out his tale of murder, madness, fear and friendship in his first novel, THE DANTE CLUB.
Juxtaposed against this heady, contentious background, Pearl delivers an amazing tale about the real life Dante Club, whose respected members were Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the poets Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes (father of the great jurist) and James Russell Lowell, historian George W. Greene and their publisher, J. T. Fields. The mission of the club was to help Longfellow, their friend and colleague, bring THE DIVINE COMEDY into America's growing literary canon. Their weekly meetings also served as a forum for them to discuss their own work, each other's work and worldly issues. But the lofty pursuits of these men are interrupted when a spate of grisly murders plague Boston --- and so the fiction begins!
"What kind of madman would be recreating the gruesome deaths depicted in Alighieri's INFERNO?" That is the question that haunts the members of the Dante Club, for it is they who recognize the demonic twist in the murderer's modus operandi. They are quite shocked when they realize the murderer is acting out the foul "punishments" Dante wrote about. "How could this be?" they ask each other, because as far as anyone knows, nobody in America has even seen the Italian tome. After long deliberation, they decide that it's in their best interest not to go to the police with their observations ... lest they be charged with the atrocious crimes. Thus, with good intentions, they set about to solve the murders themselves. Their efforts are laudable and Dr. Holmes takes charge while J. T. Fields remains grounded in common sense whenever things get out of hand.
But, my fellow bibliophiles and devoted readers, let's backtrack for a moment to examine the physicality of the book. First, the jacket is splattered with blood spots. Second, when you open to the title page you will find a horrific depiction of Hell that will both repel and draw you in. And, when you finally turn the page to begin your journey, you are greeted by "CAUTION TO THE READER ... A PREFACE ..." and at the end of his comments he closes with this sentence, "If you continue [to read this book] remember first that words can bleed." Chilling perhaps, but clever devices nonetheless; they serve to set the mood of this imaginative and wholly enjoyable novel. Mr. Pearl is an award winning Dante scholar who, at the age of twenty-six, has delivered a witty, ironic, sardonic, interesting, entertaining, gruesome, ingenious, well plotted and unconventional novel in the spirit of E. L. Doctorow's best "fiction." His characters, both real and fictional, make for a community of folks who are unforgettable in their respective roles.
Now and then, a new writer appears on the horizon with a smash hit, only to disappear when the sun goes down. Matthew Pearl is not a "one novel wonder." He has the ability and intellectual dexterity to bring forth the kinds of large fictions nineteenth century readers were accustomed to --- books in which an individual could immerse her/himself and come away stimulated with new ideas. And so it is with THE DANTE CLUB, a very important book. It works on many levels and has the sparkle needed to inspire readers to recommend it to their friends. Maybe it will even prompt you to explore INFERNO. And, if not, that's okay too. Fortunately, you don't have to be a Dante scholar to realize that this work will be discussed and analyzed and read with relish. Enjoy THE DANTE CLUB!
--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum

This marvelous book is a superlative example of numerous genres: historical fiction and mystery being two examples. While the premise of engaging famous historical figures in a mystery is intriguing, Pearl never allows this element to drive the narrative. His characterizations of Longfellow, Holmes and Lowell are so brilliant, the reader forgets that they are icons of literary history, and views them as intense and vivacious fictional characters.
This is not beach-reading, but instead an intellectual journey through Boston of the 1860s. Pearl is subtle but firm when he integrates statements about racial tension, academic politics, and even the neglect of soldiers suffering from the horrors of war.
While built on an intellectual premise, one needs not be familiar with Dante to enjoy this book. The author manages to introduce those unfamiliar with Dante to the thrill of the Inferno, without belittling those who may already know the great work. This is rarely accomplished with finesse, but Pearl manages to do it with literary aplomb.

Th Dante Club is a collection of several elite pillars of American literature in and around the Boston area in 1865. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell and publisher J.T. Fields are meeting endeavoring to translate Dante's The Divine Comedy into English. In this post Civil War era, Dante's descriptions of punishments suffered by sinners in hell is considered heresy in the puritanical world of Boston.
Imagine the shock when members of Boston's Brahmin or upper crust society are found horrifically and ritualisticaly murdered in a manner alluded to in recently translated sections of The Divine Comedy. The accomplished members of the Dante Club are immediately suspected of the crimes. Along with Nicholas Rey, the premier African American member of the Boston Police force, the Dante scholars set out to discover the identity of the murderer. Meeting resistance from all levels of Boston society including Harvard University treasurer, Dr. Augustus Manning, their investigation becomes stymied by corruption in the Boston detective bureau.
Pearl's historical fiction is a worthy first literary effort however, he can't seem to decide whether to pen a murder mystery or an historical treatise. The novel at times flows unevenly but has a high level of originality. The Dante Club is reminiscent of the historical fictions of Doctorow and Caleb Carr but with less polish.

Historical fiction slash murder mystery surrounding Dante's The Inferno. Your own knowledge of Dante's Inferno might be helpful but is no way required for this book. It tosses some Italian in and then the characters will translate it for you. Quite useful, those characters. Of course you're probably more interested in plot.

Well it starts out with 4 men translating Dante's Inferno...hence the name Dante Club. They are essentially a literary club. These men are also very different from one another with different goals, views of life, and personal issues. The author is also playing around with the historical aspects of their lives because these men Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and J.T. Fields all really lived...despite their fictionalized actions in the book. If any of those names stand out, you can probably guess the time period...right after the Civil War. 6 months after the war, to be exact. So a lot of those issues (like Negroes that were equal on the battlefield are still seen as second class after the war is over) resurfaces here and there. Then, plot-wise, a string of murders occur that deal especially with the Dante's Club knowledge.

It's an interesting book, but I wouldn't call it a page turner until page 270. The plot takes a while to develop and there almost seems like there is too much going on. In fact, I'd say that there is so much going on that it hinders the plot in places...until the last page of Canticle Three that is. Then everything whizzes by.

Sooo if you can get through the first two canticles, then you'll enjoy the book. If you don't have the time to wade through, then choose a lighter read. I give the first two canticles 3 stars, but then the last canticle 4 stars. Overall I like the book, but it was an effort to get through.

First, as an avid Civil War enthusiast, it was great fun to take a break from my usual diet of non-fiction to read a really good story with characters and events from the Civil War era. A few people have complained about mistakes in fact, as far as the War goes - I did find a few as well, but i don't think they detract from the story and certainly wouldn't be caught by the general public.

Most important, I really appreciated the importance Pearl seemed to place on male friendship - especially among the members of "The Club" - it really seems to be lacking in today's society and in today's writing. Whether the emphasis was purposeful or not, it was a nice departure from the post-modern sensibility of individualism that seems to crowd most of today's works.

This book is sooo hard to get through! It starts out great, but then it just plods along. I'm on page 72 I think, and have picked it up and put it down 3 times now. Make something happen! Yeesh!!! I mean, I know I SHOULD love this book, cuz I'm a New Englander and all, but I'm telling ya.... it's making me crazy. I loved The Alienist and the Angel of Darkness, both by Caleb Carr.... and I don't pretend to be some literary genius, but man, somethings gotta happen besides these learned poets sitting around talking about Dante.... anywhooo, I'm gonna give it one more shot, and if I still hate it... I'm putting it in one of those book collection bins.

A phenomenal book, indeed. 1865. Just after thE Civil War. The author starts from a real fact : the first American translation of Dante's Divine Comedy by Longfellow in Cambridge next to Boston. The history of this translation and the meaning of the Inferno of the Divine Comedy are perfect, though debatable. It is too close to Dante's biography to really reach the mythological level that Blake had reached a lot better in his illustrations of the English translation of the beginning of the 19th century. But that is not the main interest of the book. Then the author builds a full plot against this book, this translation from the various fundamentalist protestants who see in the book a work of the popish, papal, romish devil and try to stop it with arguments we still know perfectly : the influence on the students, and the general public, might be disturbing and dangerous, might lead them to sinning and even criminal ideas or even activities. Yet that is not the main interest of the book. The main interest is the criminal plot that develops around all that from a frustrated and deranged Civil War veteran who identifies his war sufferings to Dante's description of Hell and finds a mission in himself, that of cleaning up Boston of all the sinners who caused the war and menace Dante's translation. We then have a series of crimes that are set up as infernal punishments in the shape of what Dante describes in his poem. The details are of course not to be revealed. But the book reveals the deep hypocrisy of a society that has reached a point where the whole world is going to change. You have those who resist that change and become fundamentalists of a certain puritan conception of protestantism. You have those who seize the change to make a fortune, or to increase the fortune they have made during the war. And then you have those who navigate between the two poles and play the perfect role of the hypocrites who flatter both sides to go on speculating and even embezzling without being questioned by either side. But then you have a smaller group of intellectuals who are looking for a deeper and wider humanistic perspective and could reject both extremes for a reasonable attitude, particularly concerning the veterans who have to be helped out of their misery, rejected as they are by all sides and forced to integrate this moving and ambiguous society by swallowing down and sponging away their suffering and their trauma. Unluckily, these intellectuals are unable to do anything but their intellectual work and venture because they have never known misery, poverty, suffering and they are totally locked up in their comfortable wealthy and protected situation. In one word they are egotistic and since they are poets they end up being vain in the glory they have conquered with their poetry. In other words they are not able to change the world neither for the worse nor for the better. In a word they are pathetic in their sense of justice that only aims at stopping the criminal mind who is killing people to make their own position safer, or just plain safe. The book here becomes even ironical since the model that the criminal is going to use to assassinate people will be unknowingly provided by one of these intellectuals who will, out of his good heart, preach Dante as a cathartic entertainment and enlightenment to the veterans. When we close the book after reading the last page we just wonder if there is a higher meaning, if we have reached in any way the higher meaning that Dante brings to us with his poems, and I must say I think we haven't. It is a great thriller, though a little bit slow because of its intellectualism, but it does not lead to a reflection on society, human cruelty, war, or anything really. I wonder what William Blake would have thought of this use of the Divine Comedy as the basis of a thriller, he who thought Dante was a creator of a complete Christian mythology.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Noted Dante scholar Matthew Pearl presents us with a chilling mystery set against the backtrop of post-Civil War 1860's Boston. As four scholars, Oliver Wendall Holmes and Longfellow among them, labor to create the first American translation of Dante's Inferno in time for the 600th anniversary of Dante's birth they discover a rash of murder occuring in Boston that copies Dante's punishments of sinners in hell. Fearing the murders would jeopardize their translation, our four scholars turn their knowledge of Dante to solving the murders. Pearl has created a compelling and vivid murder mystery that will keep you guessing until the last page. Pearl's knowledge of Dante is incredible and his historical research must have been immense - 1860s Boston comes to life on every page. As another result of this book, I now have an interest in reading Dante's work, a book I purposely avoided reading in high school. This is a highly recommended work from an author that we can only hope keeps writing books like this one.

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.

For a popular fiction novel, it was quite good. At the beginning, I was really into the mystery and tried to solve it along with the heroes of the story.

The idea of having a killer copy Dante was intriguing, and the scenes where the bodies are found are full of detail and gruesome to imagine. I also liked the idea of having four of America's literary giants try and solve a mystery.

After a while, the story got kind of boring and I wanted it to be over. I kept reading because I wanted to know who the killer was. The killer was not at all who I suspected.

I thought some moments in the story unbelievable. Why would the rest of the Dante Club keep secrets from G.W. Greene, if only for the convenience of suspense?

So, the book loses momentum after the novelty of the situation wears off. Casual readers may enjoy this book, but I can't imagine true bibliophiles (especially fans of the Boston Brahmins) liking it.

Compared to other smart academic thrillers like Rabid: A Novel or Special Topics in Calamity Physics, The Dante Club fits right in.

A serial killer roams Boston in the 1800s, killing people in a manner like that in Dante's Inferno. This is odd, however, because Dante's Inferno was not published in English at the time.

The Dante Club is a lovely what-if who-done-it, bringing together Longfellow, et al, in a kind of Fireside Poets Detective Agency in 1865 Boston to catch a serial killer.

The biology in this bio-thriller is a bit specious (bot-flies, took me all of ten minutes to figure that one out, but I'm from India and I'm an MD, so I might have had an advantage.)

You don't need to know a lot about American History to understand and enjoy this book, though a basic grounding in the American Civil War helps. If you have read Gone With the Wind, you're probably all right. I found the atmosphere of post-Civil War Boston and the politics within Harvard to be the most interesting part of this novel.

If you like intellectual mysteries and riddles in your books, try: Number 9 Dream by David Mitchell, Rabid by T.K. Kenyon, and The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri.

Minna

Unlike one reviewer who calls the premise of four well-known scholars solving crimes 'preposterous,' I found this plausible. Although a work of fiction, the use of historic figures is compelling.

What I enjoyed most is that it is a very skillfully crafted mystery, with gruesome crimes committed with The Inferno as inspiration. The revelations become more and more interesting.

This is a nuanced look at artists like Longfellow and Holmes, complete with their acheiments and foibles. The characters are superbly drawn, including the murderer. Longfellow's sorrow and Holmes' interactions with his son are brought up convincingly.

A good read that is paced appropriately.

Historical personages Dr. Oliver Wendall Holmes, James Russell Lowell, publisher J. T. Fields and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow are members of the Dante Club--an intellectual endeavor to provide the first translation of Dante's THE DIVINE COMEDY. However, people are dying in 1865 Boston. They are murdered in the most gruesome fashion. Only the members of the Dante Club realize the murders are fashioned after Hell's punishments in Dante's work. With the future of their work in danger, they must solve these brutal crimes.
THE DANTE CLUB is one of the most pretentious works put out as mainstream thriller fiction in quite some time. Matthew Pearl is a Dante scholar and he wastes not a sentence in making sure the reader is aware of that fact at the expense of plot progression. Characterization is extremely spotty and no character is truly sympathetic. This is actually a somewhat difficult book to read in that it is so poorly constructed and many times the story is difficult to follow. On the positive side, Mr. Pearl manages to portray Boston of 1865 convincingly and the premise of the book is quite original. The packaging (ie. The bookjacket) is also quite attractive.

Matthew Pearl does a superb job of making me believe that this type murder could have taken place based on the motive he provides for such gruesome acts inspired by a dead Italian guy who lived hundreds of years before. I could see how it is possible that someone would do something so awful and that is what makes the book fun to read. Pearl takes you there and not only do you learn about Dante's Inferno, you also get an interesting look at the heros Longfellow, Holmes, Fields, etc.

After a vivid opening chapter it does get a bit slow for the next 50 pages or so, but it really picks up and you will speed through the end. It is a worthwhile read...and you will learn something along the way.

I think that the author had a wonderful idea...but except for one 'gathering' of the Dante Club which brings together figures larger than life and imagines their interaction, the novel becomes almost ... arduous. Pacing is uneven and gives the impression of a car travelling over various road surfaces...where it is paved, wow, but around that bend is that patch of quicksand...

The ending felt like an afterthought, unsatisfying, almost a footnote. The latter parts of the book are almost sketchy, as if some middle part was edited severely, or the vision didn't properly extend to the end of the story.

It is interesting in the way Unberto Eco's work of a murder mystery in a historical time/place was interesting, but not as fully formed or even as that work. It is worth a read, but adjust your expectations...the delta between hype and real can sink the book.

The leading literary lights of 19th-century Boston (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, the poet James Russell Lowell, their publisher Henry Fields, and the hanger-on George Washington Greene) must solve a series of murders in which the victims are punished in detail as though they were sinning denizens of Dante's inferno.

I thoroughly enjoyed this historical/literary novel wrapped around a set of gruesome, almost Hannibal-Lecter-like murders (a similar amount of gore but without the cannibalism!). Pearl does a wonderful job bringing both the historical characters and Boston itself to life. Their love for Dante will rub off on you.

I even believed Pearl when this literary Fantastic Five were rummaging around crypts and the like solving the crime. So it was a bit of a disappointment when the criminal did not, in the end, seem to be as thoughtful, well-drawn, or frankly as interesting as his pursuers.

A great summer read, though, despite this; heartily recommended for all except those with queasy stomachs.

The paperback edition I have carries a front cover blurb from the person who produced "The DaVinci Code," so I guess this book is being marketed to the same people who liked that book.

Happily, this is a much better book than "The DaVinci Code." Pearl within pages reveals himself to be much more knowledgeable about his setting than Brown was of his and seems to use English as a literary language, rather than as a language of wider communication. Also, the characters in "The Dante Club" are far more shaded and interesting than Brown. Whether this is because Pearl based many of his characters on historical figures or (more nicely) simply because Pearl is a good writer is not important for the reader, I suppose. All in all, "The Dante Club" is to be recommended to anyone in lieu of "The DaVinci Code."

Unhappily, though "The Dante Club" is better than "The DaVinci Code," it still is not a very good book. It took me, a reasonably fast reader, an inordinately long time to slog through the first couple of hundred pages. Was this because it's a substantial book? Nope: it's because it's boring. Much of the detail, while interesting in a "huh, didn't know that" way, adds nothing to the story; the premise (literary men engaged inexplicably in tracking down a murderer) is not sufficiently grounded to be believable. Said literary men often act too stupidly to be believable as leading intellectuals of their time. As a mystery, then, "The Dante Club" does not function very well, given that the flavoring of the historically based characters and chronologic setting serve only as a screen to obscure the weaknesses of the plot.

What, exactly, is the plot? Simply think of the film "Seven" with a different setting. There you've got it.

I've called this "A decent advertisement" because reading the book caused me to plan to go, just after saving this review, to secure a copy of "The Divine Comedy" so I can reread it. Those who haven't read "The Dante Club" are advised to simply skip it and go for the actual Dante instead.

"The Dante Club" is a meticulously researched historical novel. It is based on the true dante club, a group of scholars in Boston in the mid 1860's who met to translate Dante amidst much resistance from the academic and religious communities. These individuals-who included Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Longfellow, James Russell Lowell-come alive in these pages. Pearl has done a magnificent job in blending a number of facts about these individuals-for example, Longfellow's mourning over the death of his wife Fanny, his correspondence with a young woman he had met on a summer sojourn-into this book. You will learn a lot about these individuals.
However, you will also learn a lot about Dante, about Boston and Cambridge and its rigid social structure, about the politics of Harvard University at this time. And it's all fascinating.
The plot concerns the efforts of this group to track down a killer who has modeled his murders on Dante's Inferno. These murders are gruesome and grotesque. The "Club" realizes that they, and perhaps only they through their intimate knowledge of Dante, possess the power to solve them. And so they do with the help of the first African American policeman in Boston.
My problem with this book lay in the pacing and the awkwardness of the dialogue at points. Now I realize that he was trying to achieve a 19th century voice in this book; however, at times, it seemed as if he was trying to cram his research into the mouths of his characters. His narrative voice-as has been noted by other reviewers-also was uneven. I sometimes winced at the awkwardness of phrases even though all were well written.
I would recommend this book to lovers of Dante, of the Italian culture, of Boston history, of mid 19th century Harvard. I also would recommend this book to individuals who appreciate historical fiction-this book is a tougher read than The Alienist-but you should be able to appreciate his research.
I look forward to Pearl's future work and to his maturation as a writer.

Bravo!!! Hats off, Gentlemen, a genius! (sorry, Schumann)

This is a marvelous novel, a great read, and a most entertaining book. It is, amazingly, the first novel of a 20-something recent college grad. Well, maybe there is hope.

This is an enchanting piece of work; the writing is polished, the characters fully fleshed out, credible, sympathetic and LIKEABLE. The only jarring note, to me, was the introduction of the old citys first black detective, in a city still traumatized and divided by the recently completed civil war. A bit too PC for me, but that is nit picking.

The writing is warmly clubby ; Longfellow, Lowell and O W Holmes (senior) gathered around the polished oak table in the Longfellows study, a fire crackling, snow falling outside and the villain afoot in old Boston (or Cambridge, no matter) is as cozily evocative as the descriptions of the digs of the other Holmes, in Baker street. It is as chummy, and seems to invite us to sit, have a glass of port, and pour over the clues from the Poets manuscript with these scholar/detectives.

The book came at a serendipitous time for me, having just finished Menands "The Metaphysical Society", a more factual account of the intellectual goings on in old Boston at the same time, just post Civil War. It made an interesting combination with some recent studies of this reader, of Renaissance Italy, and the shenanigans of Medicean Florence at the time of Dante. I am sure this juxtaposition of violence and learning was not lost upon either author, Menand or Pearl.

Go out and buy this book. Build a fire, wait till the snow falls, curl up with a hot drink, and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. Take your time, as Pearl has only one more title to his credit. Hurry up, Mr Pearl! Basta....

Matthew Pearl has taken a clever setting and clever use of real characters to pose some very dramatic and very readable situations. Mr. Pearl's intelligent and intellectual approach in "The Dante Club" is refreshing to read; it also gives the opportunity for the reader to think and to understand Boston following the Civil War.
Using as principle characters Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell (among others), Pearl's murder scenario very cleverly surrounds--even is inundated by--Dante's "Divine Comedy." There's deaths aplenty, each a symbolic reference to one or more of Dante's "crimes in hell."
What to do? This trio, among others, has been working diligently to translate Dante into English. Alas, there are forces who violently (indeed) oppose such work, among them some of Harvard's academic elite.
The wisdom, the art, the bravery of Pearl's "characters"--combined with some he's clearly created, such as the police chief and his African-American officer--make this story gripping and fascinating. Pearl's wit, his scholarly touch, his fast-moving writing style certainly make this historial-fiction cum police procedural one not to miss. An excellent read!