The Dante Club (Matthew Pearl)

This is a creepy, atmospheric murder mystery set in Cambridge in 1865, as a body of famous poets led by Longfellow worked on the first American translation of Dante's Divine Commedy. A wave of particularly grotesque murders (described in vivid detail) begins, and it gradually becomes clear that the murders are someone's attempt to make the tortures of hell Dante described into reality. The novel is generally well-written, though it necessarily suffers from the overwrought language its characters use; while no doubt an accurate reflection of how men of letters talked at the time, it becomes tedious to read. The other issue I have with it is that there was not enough information for the reader to have discovered the killer before it is revealed. In general, though, the mystery held my interest.