Edgar Poe and the Concord Killer — Harold Schechter

Since Edgar Allan Poe sees things that are not there, hears voices others cannot, and feels utterly at home in the realm of human darkness, he is the perfect detective to unravel cases of the murderous and macabre. In Edgar Poe and the Concord Killer Poe's old friend, P. T. Barnum, implores him to take his wife, Sissy, up to Boston to secure urgent medical care. And while he is there, the showman asks, could Poe please acquire some bloody crime scene evidence to display at his museum. The crime in question is the recent butchery of a beautiful young shop girl. Once in Boston Poe quickly surmises that the sensational murder is only one of a string of inexplicable killings, centered in a shadowy pool of deceit and ghoulish depravity. Poe finds himself leading an investigation with an highly unusual girl named Louisa May Alcott, whose innocence belies her fascination with the dark side. As his wife's health falters and a city panics, Poe must see what others cannot: the invisible bonds that tie seemingly unrelated cases together -- and the truth that lies behind the ghastly disguise of a serial killer. Edgar Poe and the Concord Killer brings to life nineteenth-century New York and Boston and Concord, a world of intellectuals, charlatans, discoverers, dupes, daguerreotypists, and amateur morticians. As Poe comes closer to unraveling the fiendish riddle, the poet must admit at last that he is up against a fellow genius -- a genius not of words, but of murder and death. “There is some graphic violence in some scenes,” wrote Harriet Klausner, “as Poe's tales are not for the faint of heart. The complexity of the murders and Poe's subsequent investigation make for an entertaining historical who-done-it.” Edgar Poe and the Concord Killer is one of several bloody crime historical murder mystery novels written by Harold Schechter. This murder mystery was originally published under the title The Tell-Tale Corpse. This unleashed suspense thriller is a sure-to-please Edgar Allan Poe detective classic.