THE MAN WHO WAS POE

Avi’s mystery offers a Holmes-ian precursor, Auguste Dupin, and a young boy. Dupin is actually his creator, Edgar Allan Poe, and the tale has enough complexity to match Doyle and Poe’s stories. The setting is early nineteenth-century Providence, Rhode Island, and David Case’s British accent could have helped enhance the period, but it doesn’t. The narration is overwrought. His voice sounds constricted throughout, and his women’s voices are much too shrill and breathy. R.F.W. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: JAN 96]