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Book summary and reviews of The Dante Chamber by Matthew Pearl

The Dante Chamber by Matthew Pearl

The Dante Chamber

by Matthew Pearl

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  • Published:
  • May 2018
    368 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

From Matthew Pearl, the New York Times bestselling author of The Dante Club, a masterful tale of literature, obsession, and murder.

The year is 1870. Five years after a series of Dante-inspired killings disrupted Boston, a man is found murdered in the public gardens of London with an enormous stone around his neck etched with a verse from the Divine Comedy. When more mysterious murders erupt across the city, all in the style of the punishments Dante memorialized in Purgatory, poet Christina Rossetti fears her brother, the Dante-obsessed artist and writer Gabriel Rossetti, will be the next victim.

Christina enlists poets Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson, and famous scholar Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, to assist in deciphering the literary clues. Together these unlikely investigators rush to unravel the secrets of Dante's verses in order to find Gabriel and stop the killings. Racing between the shimmering mansions of the elite and the dark corners of London's underworld, they descend further and further into the mystery. But when the true inspiration behind the gruesome murders is finally revealed, Christina realizes that the perpetrator has even bigger and more horrific plans than she had initially thought.

A dazzling tale of intrigue from the writer Library Journal calls "the reigning king of popular literary historical thrillers," The Dante Chamber is a riveting adventure across London and through Dante. Expertly blending fact and fiction, Pearl gives us a historical mystery like no other, captivating and enthralling until the last page.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. A thoroughly entertaining excursion to the literary England of the late 19th century with some ink-stained amateur detectives." - Kirkus

"Pearl uses his literary knowledge to excellent effect as he crafts a sinister tale of obsession and manipulation." - Library Journal

"The plot here is perhaps even more complex than that of The Dante Game, but the sleuths lack some of the charisma of their American counterparts (especially Longfellow). Still, Pearl again does a stunning job of transforming Dante into brilliantly staged crime fiction." - Booklist

This information about The Dante Chamber was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

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Nikhil

Engaging, thought provoking and Beautiful
I enjoyed reading this book as much as I had enjoyed reading the Dante Club. The author's expertise in all things art and literature is quite evident. His admiration for the Victorian poets and artists is also commendable. His commentaries and explanations on The Divine Comedy in general and his mindset and though behind it in particular is beautiful. His penchant for developing and concluding a mystery is also remarkable.

This is definitely a must read for all people interested in art, literature and the late Victorian era.

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Author Information

Matthew Pearl Author Biography

Photo: Sigrid Estrada

Matthew Pearl is the author of the novels The Dante Club, The Poe Shadow, The Last Dickens, and The Technologists. His books have been New York Times bestsellers and international bestsellers translated into more than 30 languages. His nonfiction writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe and Slate.com. He has been heard on shows including NPR's All Things Considered and Weekend Edition Sunday.

Matthew Pearl grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and is a graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School. He has also taught literature and creative writing at Harvard University and Emerson College, and has been a Visiting Lecturer in law and literature at Harvard Law School. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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