Summary and Reviews of The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl

Media Reviews

Bookpage Magazine Matthew Pearl's dazzler of a debut novel, The Dante Club, is just what an historical thriller should be--a creative combo of edge-of-your-seat suspense, fully imagined characters, fictional and real, and an evocative, well-researched, well-realized setting.

Esquire Magazine Chosen as The Big Important Book of the Month Audacious and captivating... Don't be surprised if, after having read The Dante Club, you find yourself revisiting your old tattered college-issued Inferno. How much, it turns out, you've been missing.

Janet Maslin - The New York Times Mr. Pearl, with this captivating brain teaser as his debut novel, seems also to have put his life's work on the line in melding scholarship with mystery. He does justice to both.

San Jose Mercury News There aren't many writers around who can remind you of both James Patterson and Umberto Eco.

The San Francisco Chronicle - David Lazarus A hell of a first novel... 'The Dante Club' delivers in spades.

The Wall Street Journal Many American devotees may not know that they owe their first translation of The Divine Comedy to another great poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The bard gave the New World not only its first taste of the Italian poet but, with Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Russell Lowell, its first Dante Society. This is the setting for Matthew Pearl's ambitious novel, The Dante Club.....Mr. Pearl's book will delight the Dante novice and expert alike.

Booklist - Kristine Huntley Starred review. Expertly weaving period detail, historical fact (the Dante Club did indeed exist), complex character studies, and nail-biting suspense, Pearl has written a unique and utterly absorbing tale.

Library Journal - Laurel Bliss Using historical figures in a mystery setting is not a new idea (e.g., Sir Isaac Newton plays detective in Philip Kerr's Dark Matter), but Pearl has proven himself a master.

Kirkus Reviews - starred review Ingenious use of details and motifs from the Divine Comedy, and a lively picture of the literary culture of post-bellum New England, distinguish this juicy debut historical mystery.

Publisher's Weekly Talk about high concept in Pearl's debut novel, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Russell Lowell team up with 19th-century publisher J.T. Fields to catch a serial killer in post-Civil War Boston ... is an ambitious and often entertaining thriller that may remind readers of Caleb Carr.

 David Liss, Edgar Award–winning author of A Conspiracy of Paper

... a thoroughly accomplished first novel. Matthew Pearl does a marvelous job of evoking the period and making it come alive with finely drawn characters and an ingenious story.

 Iain Pears, author of An Instance of the Fingerpost

A fascinating, erudite, and highly entertaining account of a remarkable moment in American literary history.