• Author: Edgar Allan Poe
• Series: Standalone
• No. of pages: 192
• Dates read: 01.04.20 – 03.04.20
• Rating: 2 stars (DNF)

Thank you Pushkin Vertigo and Netgalley for a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Plot: An apartment on the rue Morgue turned into a charnel house; the corpse of a shopgirl dragged from the Seine; a high-stakes game of political blackmail-three mysteries that have enthralled the whole of Paris, and baffled the city’s police. The brilliant Chevalier Auguste Dupin investigates – can he find the solution where so many others before him have failed?

Sadly, this is a DNF, page 80.

Unfortunately, while the short stories were really intriguing. I mainly struggled with the writing style. Especially, when it came to the main character explaining his thought process. I got confused by the sentences and words chosen. This affected the pacing of the novel as I had to keep on highlighting words on my Kindle to understand what the words meant. This meant that the story felt quite slow.

The parts I enjoyed the most was the explanation of the murder. I really enjoyed the matter of fact style of detailing all the evidence and circumstance of the case e.g. where the body was found, who was the victim, who found them, in what state were they found it etc. I found it really easy to follow and I felt like I had all the evidence in front of me to try and work it out myself.

I did enjoy the setting of Paris, the way the city is described was really beautiful. I felt like I was there experiencing Paris alongside the narrator.

I also enjoyed the partnership between the two main characters, our narrator and Dupin. They had a really good back and forth going. Sadly, the problems just arose to the writing style of the dialogue and all the over-the-top words which were used which I had no idea what they meant. It gave the affect of walking through mud, a slow going process which takes a lot of energy to go through.

The next book I will be reviewing is one I am super excited about and that’s, The Hod King by Josiah Bancroft. I am a huge fan of his series so I can’t wait to tell you my thoughts!