Matthew Pearl crafts compelling historical thrillers, lauded for their intellectual depth and challenging nature, described as "the growing genre of novel being written nowadays -- the learned, challenging kind that does not condescend." He is hailed as the "reigning king of popular literary historical thrillers," with a talent for immersing readers in the past, as if providing a passport to a foreign country. His novels, which have achieved international bestseller status and translation into numerous languages, offer a distinctive blend of thoughtful narrative and engaging suspense. Pearl's unique approach solidifies his reputation as a writer of rare talents.
The True Story of a Castaway Family, Treachery, and Murder
272 pages
10 hours of reading
The narrative unfolds as a remarkable true tale of survival, featuring a family akin to the Swiss Family Robinson, alongside their loyal dog. They confront perilous challenges including sharks, a shipwreck, and the threat of betrayal. This gripping account highlights their resilience and the extraordinary circumstances they endure, offering readers a captivating glimpse into their adventure and the bonds that hold them together in the face of adversity.
In his first work of narrative nonfiction, Matthew Pearl, bestselling author of acclaimed novel The Dante Club, explores the little-known true story of the kidnapping of legendary pioneer Daniel Boone's daughter and the dramatic aftermath that rippled across the nation. On a quiet midsummer day in 1776, weeks after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, thirteen-year-old Jemima Boone and her friends Betsy and Fanny Callaway disappear near the Kentucky settlement of Boonesboro, the echoes of their faraway screams lingering on the air. A Cherokee-Shawnee raiding party has taken the girls as the latest salvo in the blood feud between American Indians and the colonial settlers who have decimated native lands and resources. Hanging Maw, the raiders' leader, recognizes one of the captives as Jemima Boone, daughter of Kentucky's most influential pioneers, and realizes she could be a valuable pawn in the battle to drive the colonists out of the contested Kentucky territory for good. With Daniel Boone and his posse in pursuit, Hanging Maw devises a plan that could ultimately bring greater peace both to the tribes and the colonists. But after the girls find clever ways to create a trail of clues, the raiding party is ambushed by Boone and the rescuers in a battle with reverberations that nobody could predict. As Matthew Pearl reveals, the exciting story of Jemima Boone's kidnapping vividly illuminates the early days of America's westward expansion, and the violent and tragic clashes across cultural lines that ensue. In this enthralling narrative in the tradition of Candice Millard and David Grann, Matthew Pearl unearths a forgotten and dramatic series of events from early in the Revolutionary War that opens a window into America's transition from colony to nation, with the heavy moral costs incurred amid shocking new alliances and betrayals
Memories, fears, the fog of nightmares... Five years after a series of Dante-inspired killings stunned Boston, a politician is found in a London park with his neck crushed by an enormous stone device etched with a verse from the Divine Comedy. When other shocking deaths erupt across the city, all in the style of the penances Dante memorialized in Purgatory, poet Christina Rossetti fears her missing brother, the artist and writer Dante Gabriel Rossetti, will be the next victim. The unwavering Christina enlists poets Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, and Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes to decipher the literary clues, and together these unlikely investigators unravel the secrets of Dante’s verses to find Gabriel and stop the killings. Racing between the shimmering mansions of the elite and the seedy corners of London’s underworld, they descend further into the mystery. But when the true inspiration behind the gruesome murders is finally revealed, Christina must confront a more profound terror than anyone had imagined. A dazzling tale of intrigue from the writer Library Journal calls “the reigning king of popular literary historical thrillers,” The Dante Chamber is a riveting journey across London and into both the beauty and darkness of Dante. Expertly blending fact and fiction, Pearl gives us a historical mystery like no other that captivates and surprises until the last page.
"'An ingenious thriller' (Sunday Times) from the author of The Dante Club A reclusive writeraA stolen manuscriptaAn adventure at the ends of the earth On the island of Samoa, a dying Robert Louis Stevenson labours over a new novel. It is rumoured that this may be the author of Treasure Island's greatest masterpiece. On the other side of the world this news fires the imaginations of the bookaneers, literary pirates who steal the latest manuscripts by famous writers. Two adversaries set out for the South Pacific: Pen Davenport, a tortured criminal genius haunted by his past and Belial, his nemesis. Both dream of fortune and immortality with what may be their last and most incredible heist. The Last Bookaneer thrillingly depicts the lost world of these doomed outlaws, a tropical island with a violent destiny, a brewing colonial war and a reclusive genius directing events from high in his mountain compound."
Set against the backdrop of the founding of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, this historical mystery weaves a captivating tale reminiscent of Arthur Conan Doyle's style. Readers will encounter thrilling cliffhangers, unexpected escapes, and charming romantic subplots, all contributing to a richly engaging narrative. The blend of intrigue and personal relationships ensures a compelling read that keeps the audience guessing until the end.
The city's fate relies on four young students: Civil War veteran Marcus
Mansfield, brash Bob Richards, meticulous Edwin Hoyt and the eccentric but
brilliant Ellen Swallow. In a climate of rising hysteria, these four
courageous individuals must unite against the forces of darkness to uncover
the mastermind before he can stage his greatest outrage.
In his most enthralling novel yet, the critically acclaimed author Matthew
Pearl reopens one of literary history’s greatest mysteries. The Last Dickens
is a tale filled with the dazzling twists and turns, the unerring period
details, and the meticulous research that thrilled readers of the bestsellers
The Dante Club and The Poe Shadow.
Baltimore, 1849. The body of Edgar Allan Poe has been buried in an unmarked grave. Quentin Clark is a young lawyer and ardent admirer who puts his own career and reputation at risk in a crusade to find out the truth behind Poe's death. After discovering that the writer's last days are riddled with unanswered questions the police are ignoring, Quentin finds himself enmeshed in a sinister machinations involving international political agents, a female assassin, the corrupt Baltimore slave trade, and the lost secrets of Poe's final hours. In order to unchain his now imperiled fate from Poe's, Quentin must himself turn master investigator.
In 1867, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow completed the first American translation of Inferno and thus introduced Dante’s literary genius to the New World. In the Inferno, the spirit of the classical poet Virgil leads Dante through the nine circles of Hell on the initial stage of his journey toward Heaven. Along the way Dante encounters and describes in vivid detail the various types of sinners in the throes of their eternal torment.
Nineteenth-century Boston is plagued by a series of grisly murders inspired by visions of Dante's Inferno. Four renowned scholars join together to stop the killer.
