"[An] ingenious new literary mystery.., sparkling with erudition."

--The New York Times

"Not just a page-turner but a beguiling look at the United States in an era when elites shaped the course of learning and publishing. With this story of the Dante Club’s own descent into hell, Mr. Pearl’s book will delight the Dante novice and expert alike."

--The Wall Street Journal

"Ably meshes the.., literary analysis with a suspenseful plot and in the process humanizes the historical figures...a divine mystery."

--People (starred review)

Boston, 1865. A series of murders, all of them inspired by scenes in Dantes Inferno. Only an elite group of Americas first Dante scholars--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and J. T. Fields--can solve the mystery. With the police baffled, more lives endangered, and Dante’s literary future at stake, the Dante Club must shed its sheltered literary existence and find the killer.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CAUTION TO THE READER

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

HISTORICAL NOTE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS