Rating: 
Summary: Particularly nice for Dante fans
Review: As someone who is a real fan of Dante (I normally read the entire Divine Comedy in various translations twice a year), I thoroughly enjoyed the book. The twists and turns of the suspense are very well crafted, and a nice tribute to Dante. While a reader wouldn't have to be completely familiar with the Inferno, at least some familiarity is called for. After finishing the book, readers may want to dig deeper into Dante's work with a renewed interest.
Rating: 
Summary: Brahmins, Intellectuals and Hell
Review: For a first novel, Matthew Pearl's The Dante Club is astonishing in its readability, twists and turns, and general information about the Boston and Harvard environs during the post Civil War period. Real life characters (Holmes, Longfellow, Lowell, Eliot and more)are Dickension in nature, and the plot is similarly comparable. A book to be read carefully, the Dante Club is unique. Not a book for the faint of heart, the plot unfolds with a gruesome murder, minutely detailed, which is followed with more of the same. Academia, quotes from Dante, lowlife and highlife characters, all combine to create a soup of mystery and shock. For the reader who likes intellecutality combined with his or her mystery reading, this is such a book. I look forward to reading what Pearl concocts for his next work of fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: A Somewhat Reserved View
Review: The window opened to another time that THE DANTE CLUB provides has it's merits. We get to see how much more important the act of writing, poetry most specifically, had on general society. The politics between the distinguished members of the poetry translation club and the Harvard corporation was quite interesting as well. The difficulties I have with the book stem from it's rather slow start, though it gradually picks up steam, but is then seriously hampered by the inexplicable meandering of the narrative. Lots of detail and background of the time are provided, but one never feels that as much effort is given to establishing the characters with sufficient depth and complexity. This is especially true in regards to the character of Nicholas Rey, the first black police officer in Boston. Far less was done with this intriguing character than hoped. Furthermore, the ultimate resolution to the mystery is neither moving nor particularly satisfying to this reader. While physically an elegant book (dust jacket and paper), with lovely print, and written by a talented first time author whose work I will look out for in the future, don't be fooled by some of the suspiciously over-enthusiastic reviews. There seems to be a concerted effort to swing the critical pendulum to the side of positive opinion.
Rating:
Summary: Infernal Dantean murders
Review: Th Dante Club is a collection of several elite pillars of American literature in and around the Boston area in 1865. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell and publisher J.T. Fields are meeting endeavoring to translate Dante's The Divine Comedy into English. In this post Civil War era, Dante's descriptions of punishments suffered by sinners in hell is considered heresy in the puritanical world of Boston. Imagine the shock when members of Boston's Brahmin or upper crust society are found horrifically and ritualisticaly murdered in a manner alluded to in recently translated sections of The Divine Comedy. The accomplished members of the Dante Club are immediately suspected of the crimes. Along with Nicholas Rey, the premier African American member of the Boston Police force, the Dante scholars set out to discover the identity of the murderer. Meeting resistance from all levels of Boston society including Harvard University treasurer, Dr. Augustus Manning, their investigation becomes stymied by corruption in the Boston detective bureau. Pearl's historical fiction is a worthy first literary effort however, he can't seem to decide whether to pen a murder mystery or an historical treatise. The novel at times flows unevenly but has a high level of originality. The Dante Club is reminiscent of the historical fictions of Doctorow and Caleb Carr but with less polish.
Rating:
Summary: Murder by Gaslight
Review: Like fine wine, murders age very well. When you think of it, what is the most cornered book market in the fiction world today? Modern serial killer books. These hack and slash tirades have pretty much taken every turn they can, resulting in a increasingly mediocre quality of story. So, as young author Matthew Pearl does brilliantly, let's go back in time, shall we? Nothing colors a murder mystery so bright as a more gentile time, where lunatics with butcher knives just wasn't done. Be it the brilliant turn of the century tales of Caleb Carr or the tales of Jack the Ripper, murder is much more sexy in more innocent times. Although hardly lily white, the chilly environs of 1865 Boston fit this bill perfectly. With its high society, Harvard dons and literary heavyweights, Boston is in need of a really ingenious murder mystery. Author Matthew Pearl delivers a real devilish one, befitting the intellectual image of snowy Cambridge. Winter 1865. Boston is a city in the dark, slowly and painfully recovering from the ravages of the Civil War. The high class of Boston attempts to resume their pleasurable activities, even though the nation is still torn by class conflict. Secretly, a group of famous intellectuals has embarked on a truly unique project. Men like Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell are going to bring Dante to American. Against the wishes of the extremely conservative Harvard Corporation, the Dante Club, as it is dubbed, attempts to create an American translation of the medieval Italian work. The corporation fears the work, because of its strong Catholic underpinnings, its seemingly anti-Protestant disposition, and, most of all, its foreign origin. The battle between the two groups takes a horrific turn as a series of murders begins to take place. The police are baffled, but the Dante Club soon recognizes what is at work. Someone knows Dante all too well... As the violence continues, the club is forced to take up the chase for the murderer. Aiding them in the pursuit is Nicholas Rey, the first colored policeman in the department. Rey is a war hero, and quick witted. He adds some muscle to the bookish squad. The intriguing part of the mystery is that so few know of Dante in America, so the origin of the killer is very difficult to discern. Coupled with good old-fashioned detective work, the Dante Club must delve deep into the often horrific words of Dante himself in order to stop the killing. However, the mystery becomes even more shadowy as the motives for the killing become wrapped up in the delicate but vitriolic politics of post war Boston. This book is really good because it uses all its tool. First, the setting is just tailor made for this kind of book. Ol Boston, a city of stone and timber, with its odd customs and its all-consuming university is a great place for detective work. Just as Carr used 1900 New York City, Pearl utilized the chilly New England darkness only Boston can deliver. The harsh inner conflicts of the city are also examined, with its homeless veterans, its freed slaves and its new Irish immigrants. The characters are all good, with believable fictional incarnations of some of Americans best known writers. Pearl did his homework, so he writes in a very genuine way as these intellectual giants try to sort out the twisted mystery. Pearl also really knows his Dante, and the fiendishly dark words of the Italian poet are used to great effect. The killer, his motives, and the mystery itself, are very satisfying. Oooo...how that first victim gets killed, it sends chills up anyone?s spine! Just a great book all around, on so many different levels.
Rating:
Summary: Imaginative
Review: The Dante Club is a wonderfully inventive mystery in the tradition of Umberto Ecco's The Name of the Rose or Ian Pears' the Instance of the Fingerpost. Matthew Pearl's book takes place in 1865 in Boston. Pearl creates a fictional version of the members of the original Dante Club who were engaged in the first American translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. In the novel, the murderer uses the Inferno as the inspiration for committing gruesome killings modeled after the torturous punishments of Dante's hell. First a prominent judge is murdered, then a prominent minister, then a prominent businessman. Each time a body is found, the police a baffled, but the Dante Club recognizes the punishments for what they are. The original members of the Dante Club included Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (poet), Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose famous son bears the same name, James Russell Lowell (poet), George W. Greene (historian), and JT Fields (publisher). Nowadays, it is hard to imagine the amount of animosity aroused by the mere idea of translating this poem. Pearl gives us insight into the politics of 19th century Harvard University as his characters wind through the mystery. The poem and its original language are considered, by some Harvard administrators and overseers, to be vulgar, corrupting, and Catholic! The heroes are the members of the Dante Club who fight this ignorance. They live inside the poem. As great poets and wordsmiths, they struggle to balance the essence of the translation with its poetry. Pearl's imagination and writing skills are strongest when he writes about these characters; he engages us; he makes us care about getting that translation done; about foiling the small minded at Harvard. Then, Pearl weaves in a fictionalized mulatto policeman, Boston's first. He writes about the corruption of both the Boston's political system and its police. With these choices he has to write about post civil war racism. He then is compelled to make heroes out of the members of the Dante Club, who all appear to have 20th century sensitivity to these issues. Once he chose to make one of the main characters black, I think had no choice. While Racism and heroism are well worth writing about, it is in this part of the tale that Pearl lacks imagination. It is only in these segments of the novel that Pearl is predictable. It is for this reason, that I lowered my Amazon.com rating from 5 to 4 stars. All in all, Pearl has written a delightful book with an intriguing concept. I recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Librarian Recommends!
Review: We serve over 6,000 blind and physically handicapped in the state of Mississippi and this title will definitely become a recommended book to our patrons. I've read the hardback edition and the Library of Congress, National Library Service for the Blind & Physically Handicapped, has recorded it unabridged (as all of their titles are). This free service is available nationwide and I hope readers will pick up this title in whatever format they so desire. It is a fascinating bit of American literary history with all the appropriate characters live and in color (and this is fiction?!!).
Rating:
Summary: A Literary Thriller
Review: There are few things better than a thriller that's more than a thriller and Matthew Pearl has written just such a book. By combining well-written characters with a mystery based on Dante's Inferno, Pearl has written a novel that will appeal even to readers who wouldn't normally take a serious look at what is, at its heart, the story of a serial killer. The setting of this novel is Boston in the days after the end of the Civil War. Pearl does an excellent job of capturing the feel of the era. He is also very good giving us a sense of his characters, despite (or maybe because of) the fact that many are well-know personages of the time. In particular, I found Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Russell Lowell to be quite engaging. But, in fact, every character in the story seems to have a memorable moment or two except, oddly, the central figure of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The plot centers around a series of gruesome murders happening around Boston. It doesn't take long before a group of writers--Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell, etc.--realize that these murders are the image of the punishments suffered by the inmates of Dante's Inferno. They realize this because they are in the process of producing the first English translation of the work. This is a process that is being fought by many important people so these poets decide to solve the mystery themselves instead of going to the police--and therein lies much of the interest of this novel. To be frank, as a teacher myself I found the bickering between the administrators of Harvard (who are very against this translation) and this group of professors to be part of what makes this novel work for me. Pearl easily captures the kind of infighting that goes on in schools from Harvard to the worst-performing public school. It brought in that touch of realism that I enjoy in a novel like this that often has such extreme moments. And in the basic intellectual freedom of the 21st century America we often forget how things like religion (in this case, Catholicism vs. Protestantism) can affect something like the translation of a book. We also forget the vitriol that some people had over the loss of the classical languages and the rise of the modern languages. I found the integration of all this to be quite interesting. By the way, it should be said that the reader does not have to be an expert on Dante to enjoy this novel. Pearl gives us everything we need to follow what is going on. And he certainly makes Dante vivid for us. I had read The Divine Comedy before (though not in Longfellow's translation) but I was inspired to go back and take a look at it again on reading this. With luck, this novel will encourage other readers to take a look at some of the classics. In the end, Pearl is able to keep the surprises coming up to the end of the book--always a difficult thing to do. I do wonder, however, what he intends to do as an encore. This novel came from his own expertise on Dante. I hope he hasn't used up everything on this one book. He has talent that I hope he intends to develop because he still has places to go. But The Dante Club is a nice start.
Rating:
Summary: Great mix of history and mystery!
Review: I really like to read books from all different time periods and this book makes you feel like you are really in post-civil war Boston. It gives plenty of detail on the characters and you feel like you know them personally. It is also fun and challenging to figure out who the murderer is, because the author does not give any clues in his speech of who it could be. The author is very knowledgeable about Daunte. While you don't learn ALL of the details of Daunte's Inferno, you learn many of them and you get a sense of the true meaning of the poetry.
Rating: 
Summary: Not quite there.
Review: What seemed like a promising read just didn't flesh out very well.
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