Edgar Allan Poe Books

It is the summer of 1840--for some in New York City a season of prosperity; for others, another season of desperation. This is the milieu of On Night's Shore , an amazing literary thriller from an author hailed by the New York Times Book Review as "a masterful storyteller." Randall Silvis's On Night's Shore opens with one of the most spellbinding scenes in contemporary writing. A girl tosses her baby from a warehouse window, then follows the infant into the Hudson River far below. The only witness to this desperate act is a ten-year-old street arab named Augie Dubbins, a boy who survives by the motto, "In calamity, opportunity." Augie does what he can to make a few pennies from the girl's tragedy. In doing so he encounters another of the desperate ones, a struggling young journalist named Edgar Allan Poe, a poet and critic and newspaper hack whose penchant for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time has not only stymied his advancement as a writer but has earned him more than a few enemies. Poe, too, hopes to use the girl's misfortune to fatten his threadbare purse. His efforts to do so lead to the discovery of the body of yet another young woman, and the ensuing investigation of her murder soon entraps Poe in a mire of murder, greed, lust and power that stretches from the Five Points slums to the gleaming heights of Fifth Avenue. But On Night's Shore is much more than just a page-turner. Here we see deep into the troubled psyche of Edgar Allan Poe, the father of all detective stories. We see the darkness that drove him, the demons that plagued him. We also see the tenderness with which he treated his young wife, soon to die herself, and his devoted, stalwart mother-in-law, and the avuncular kindness he lavished on Augie Dubbins, who in ten short years has witnessed more brutality and perversity than even Poe could imagine. And we see all of these characters entwined in the tentacles of a power struggle to control the fate of New York City, the sleazy underbelly of a political and business elite that speaks as much to today's society as it did to Poe's. Seldom does an historical thriller so authentically recreate a time and place as does On Night's Shore . Not since E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime have readers been treated to such a rich cast of qlcharacters, both real and imagined, or to a story so suspenseful and compelling-all of it rendered in some of the most luminous prose being written today. In this, his eighth book of fiction, Randall Silvis brilliantly bridges the gap between serious and popular literature. On Night's Shore is a stunning and haunting achievement.

After the death of his beloved wife, a devastated Poe decides that a change of scenery is in order. He has been invited to Pittsburgh by a wealthy benefactor, Dr. Alfred Brunrichter, a man of intriguing contradiction who on the one hand was fascinated by subjects so macabre that even Poe did not wish to consider, while on the other hand was solicitous of Poe's comfort in every regard and was a local philanthropist and patron of the arts. Augie Dubbins, now a young man in search of adventure, joins Poe in order to keep an eye on his increasingly maudlin friend. After an exhausting journey across the length of Pennsylvania, their first glimpse of Pittsburgh is not a heartening one. The city, a tight triangle of enterprise squeezed between the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, is gray with factory smoke; its riverbanks clogged with barges, streamboats and freighters, choked with log rafts from the denuded forests farther north. It is at every turn a working-class city, gritty and rough. Moreover, the air of Pittsburgh reeks of death - a cholera epidemic has recently swept through the city, killing hundreds - and Poe and Augie soon learn the real reason behind the city's malaise. Several young females, all attractive women in their late teens, have disappeared over the past six months. All are of the merchant class - not among the cultural elite but not outright prostitutes either. With Poe almost incapacitated by the lavish attention of their host, Augie finds himself exploring Pittsburgh on his own and begins to investigate the killings. With great attention to period detail and utilizing all of his skill as a seasoned novelist, Randall Silvis once again crafts a wonderful historical thriller that will leave you gripping the edge of your seats.