Random House Trade Paperbacks -- tpbNew York -- ©2004 --380pp
ISBN: 0-8129-7104-3
In Boston, 1865, America's first Dante Alighieri scholars (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and J.T. Fields) work to translate The Divine Comedy, while a murderer terrorizes Boston by methods that only the Dante Club can decipher.
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I had picked this book up a number of times in the bookstores, seriously considering buying it, but each time I would put it back, uncertain as to why it both attracted me and yet I couldn't come to actually purchase it.
When I saw it on the "new books" shelf at my library I was eager to give it its chance.
It seems that my first instincts of maybe/maybe not were right on.
This was an interesting book, and a cleverly plotted mystery, and the historical aspects were fun to explore.
On the other hand, it was dry and slow-moving, and the historical figures of Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell and Fields were about as bland as any character could possibly be.
I'm glad I read it, but I cannot recommend this.
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