Welshrogue

Boston, 1865, a group of poets, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Russell Lowell, along with their publisher, J.T. Fields find that the book they are attempting to translate, Dantes Inferno, is the inspiration for a killer who is stalking the streets and murdering his victims in ways mentioned in the book.

Think of a murder mystery, set a century and a half ago, throw in a classical book such as Inferno and use real life characters trying to solve the murders and you have The Dante Club.

If you are at all a fan of Dante Alighieri’s Devine Comedy you will appreciate how Matthew Pearl has crafted this story around it and created a very good book. While it is very well written, if you are not such a literary fan then you may struggle slightly at points and find the book longer than its 418 pages.

A very enjoyable read regardless of your knowledge of Dante.