This April marks the 175th anniversary of the publication of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders of the Rue Morgue. It was the first of the three stories to feature C. Auguste Dupin, the first literary detective. Later writers, including Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, would cite Poe and Dupin as their inspiration. Fitting, as it is…
Pushkin Vertigo, a section of Pushkin Press, has dedicated itself to identifying masterful, classic foreign mysteries and bringing them to a new audience. Carefully chosen and given gorgeous cover designs, even the most dedicated crime reader will find something new. (Read about the other Pushkin Vertigo classics I loved) THE TOKYO ZODIAC MURDERS The Tokyo…
In the muddy, soot-blackened days of early Manhattan, a tiny cabal of scientists pushes for the advancement of medicine and anatomical understanding. A smaller group runs a dangerous underground business in procuring dead bodies. And the general public is disgusted by them all. Walt Whitman, cub reporter for the Aurora newspaper is both friend to the…
Conan Doyle is invariably linked to his most famous creation, Sherlock Holmes. The stories skyrocketed him to fame and the tales are STILL spawning new fans, more than 100 years later. Conan Doyle wrote numerous other stories as well. Some were more of what we would call science fiction (like The Lost World, with time…
October 7, 1849 is the day Edgar Allan Poe died. He spent the last four days of his life incoherent in a Baltimore hospital, having been found insensible on October 3. A great deal has been made of the mystery of how he died. And even more rumor has been passed along as fact.