There's Something About Edgar

During this morning’s “Weekend Edition” show on National Public Radio, Tom Vitale considered two new books, both featuring Edgar Allan Poe, the father of the detective story. Poe’s life and death have fascinated writers for years, and this is far from the first time Poe has served as a modern author’s muse. Homicide: Life on the Streets, the best cop show ever on network television, updated Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” in a classic episode from Season 4. Laura Lippman, currently on tour in support of her new Tess Monaghan novel, No Good Deeds, launched an earlier book from the cemetery where Poe is buried, and where the Poe Toaster emerges once a year on the anniversary of the great man’s death. And, of course, Poe has figured as a detective of sorts in at least two crime-fiction series, one by Harold Schechter (The Tell-Tale Corpse, 2006) and the other by Randall Silvis (Disquiet Heart, 2002).

Matthew Pearl’s The Poe Shadow revolves around Poe’s mysterious death in 1849 on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland, his adopted home. Broke and obscure, and thought to be hopelessly mad, Pearl’s protagonist seeks to solve the riddle of Poe’s final hours and the cause of his death, still hotly debated among Poe aficionados.

Louis Bayard’s novel, The Pale Blue Eye, features a 20-year-old Poe, then a Cadet at West Point, as a central character. This young Poe is engaged as an assistant to a retired police detective who’s been hired by the service academy to find out who stole the heart from the body of a young man presumed to have committed suicide.

Pearl and Bayard both say they hope that their new books will help revive interest in the works of Poe. Read excerpts from their novels and listen to the NPR piece here.