Edgar Allan Poe and the Empire of the Dead

Book excerpt: A thrilling historical mystery about mesmerism and magic, the shadows of the past, and the endurance of love—the third novel in the author’s acclaimed Poe and Dupin series. “And I prayed that I would find a way to tell my most honorable friend, the Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin, the truth about how I had finally been murdered and by whom.”—EAP Summer, 1849. When Edgar Allan Poe travels to Paris to help his dear friend hunt down the elusive criminal who bought the Dupin family to ruin during the French Revolution, the sleuthing duo are engaged by the prefect of police to recover the stolen letter of an infamous Parisian salonnière. Is the thief one of the French literary greats who attend her salons, or might it be Dupin’s own enemy who is scheming to become the Emperor of France? Poe and Dupin are quickly embroiled in a deadly cat and mouse game that takes them to the treacherous tunnels of the city’s necropolis, where few who venture into the notorious Empire of the Dead manage to return from the darkness… The third in the author’s critically acclaimed Edgar Allan Poe series, Empire of the Dead is a thrilling historical mystery about alchemy, mesmerism and magic, the shadows of the past, and the endurance of love.