Devotees of high-end thrillers steeped in literary history have been awaiting Pearl's follow-up to The Dante Game (2002) for many years, and here it is. Once again, Pearl weaves an elaborate tale from the fevered imagination of Dante Alighieri, this time drawing on The Purgatorio, the second part of TheDivine Comedy. Unfathomably horrific murders are taking place in 1870 London, and, as was the case in Boston five years earlier, it will take a band of poets turned sleuths to figure out what's happening. Oliver Wendell Holmes is the only Dante Game player to turn up again, with Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, and Christina Rossetti rounding out the gang of poets on the case, which begins with trying to find Christina's brother and fellow poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who is soon identified as the chief suspect in a string of deaths that mimic the penances required by the denizens of Dante's purgatory. The plot here is perhaps even more complex than that of The Dante Game, but the sleuths lack some of the charisma of their American counterparts (especially Longfellow). Still, Pearl again does a stunning job of transforming Dante into brilliantly staged crime fiction. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Literary-fiction book clubbers who like to dabble in thrillers will be palpitating at another chance to mix Dante and murder.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2018 Booklist

This well-wrought sequel of sorts to The Dante Club (2002) shifts the action to England and another set of literary lights who seek to solve crimes tied to The Divine Comedy.In late 1869, around the time a British member of Parliament dies under the crushing weight of a large stone on which a Latin message is written, the poet Christina Rossetti has an "ominous foreboding" about her missing brother, the erratic artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti. She, Robert Browning, and William Rossetti (another brother) seek clues at Gabriel's London home, which he shares with a monkey, a raccoon, and other nonwriting animals. The humans recognize links between the MP's death and punishments in Dante's "Purgatory." They will be joined in their probe by Alfred Tennyson and Oliver Wendell Holmes, visiting from Boston, and bothered by the well-read Scotland Yard Detective Adolphus "Dolly" Williamson, who has trouble with the Fenians but is more intrigued by the Dante killing. Soon it's killings, starting with an opera singer whose eyes are sewn shut before she's bizarrely impaled. While the literati grow concerned that Gabriel is involved in the deaths, an ex-Pinkerton operative arrives in England to try to capitalize on the crimes the way he did with those in Boston that Pearl (The Last Bookaneer, 2015, etc.) described in The Dante Club. Displaying extensive knowledge of the period and the writers, Pearl builds an intricate, well-layered plot. His addition of Holmes, one of the previous book's main players, supplies a bridge between the U.S. and U.K. Dantean crimes. The language has nice period touches but overall is less overdone than in Pearl's past. And his focus on Christina among several imposing male writers makes narrative sense but is also a refreshing choice and produces a complex, appealing character.A thoroughly entertaining excursion to the literary England of the late 19th century with some ink-stained amateur detectives. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

ATTICUS FINCH: The Biography, by Joseph Crespino. (Basic Books, $27.) This biography of the much-loved fictional character from Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" brings to life the inconsistencies of the South and of Lee's father, who was the model for the real Atticus. BEARSKIN, by James A. McLaughlin. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $26.99.) Terrible things are happening to black bears in this debut mystery set in western Virginia. And the humans facing off against the novel's ex-con hero, now charged with protecting a wilderness preserve, are just as terrible. THE WORLD AS IT IS: A Memoir of the Obama White House, by Ben Rhodes. (Random House, $30.) In this humane and amiable insider's account of the Obama years, Rhodes traces his intellectual evolution as a key adviser to the president. Starry-eyed at the beginning, he learns to temper his idealism, but in a crass political era, he impressively avoids becoming a cynic. TYRANT: Shakespeare on Politics, by Stephen Greenblatt. (Norton, $21.95.) The noted Shakespeare scholar finds parallels between our political world and that of the Elizabethans - and in his catalog of the plays' tyrannical characters, locates some very familiar contemporary types. THERE THERE, by Tommy Orange. (Knopf, $25.95.) Orange's devastatingly beautiful debut novel, about a group of characters converging on the San Francisco Bay Area for an event called the "Big Oakland Powwow," explores what it means to be an urban Native American. A VIEW OF THE EMPIRE AT SUNSET, by Caryl Phillips. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.) Set in England, France and the Caribbean, Phillips's fragmented novel uses the difficult, lonely life of the half-Welsh, half-West-Indian writer Jean Rhys (author of "Wide Sargasso Sea") to explore themes of alienation, colonialism and exile. THE MORALIST: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made, by Patricia O'Toole. (Simon & Schuster, $35.) O'Toole focuses on the public deeds of a president who has become a source of almost endless controversy. She describes a politician deft at shifting his views to gain power and achieve important reforms. PURE HOLLYWOOD: And Other Stories, by Christine Schutt. (Grove, $23.) These expert stories by a Pulitzer finalist are awash in money, lush foliage and menace, in prose so offbeat it's revelatory. DRAWN TOGETHER, by Minh Le. Illustrated by Dan Santat. (Hyperion, $17.99; ages 4 to 8.) In this picture book, a boy and his grandpa, who doesn't speak English, sit glumly until they begin to draw a comic-book epic together, bridging the language and generational divide in a way that's at once touching and thrilling. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books

Here, Pearl returns to the setting of his debut novel, The Dante Club. Five years have passed since the series of horrific murders in Boston, and similar events are happening in London. Christina Rossetti isn't aware of them at first, being deeply troubled by the disappearance of her brother Dante Gabriel. His erratic behavior and unhealthy fixation with Italian poet Dante Alighieri has everyone concerned, especially with the spate of strange deaths based on the "Purgatory" cantica of the Divine Comedy. While visiting from Boston, Oliver Wendell Holmes gets drawn into the search, as does Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson. Can this quartet of gifted poets find Dante and stop the killer from striking again? VERDICT Pearl uses his literary knowledge to excellent effect as he crafts a sinister tale of obsession and manipulation. This should appeal to fans of Victorian murder mysteries, such as those by Alex Grecian or Anne Perry, and poetry enthusiasts who will enjoy seeing these well-known lyricists come to life. [See Prepub Alert, 12/11/17.]-Laurel Bliss, San Diego State Univ. Lib. © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Pearl continues his successful run of intricate literary mysteries featuring famous literary works and real historical literary figures (The Dante Club, The Last Bookaneer) with this complex murder mystery set in London in 1870. Real-life 19th-century poet Christina Rossetti's brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, an expert on Dante's Divine Comedy, is missing, and she is worried. After several gruesome murders occur, each with a chilling connection to the punishments detailed in the seven terraces of Dante's Purgatory, she fears Gabriel will be the next victim. The police, meanwhile, think Gabriel is the killer. Christina teams up with fellow poets Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, and Oliver Wendell Holmes to find Gabriel and solve the murders, not realizing that one of the famous poets is a police informant and Scotland Yard already knows more than it lets on. The poets are naive and unskilled detectives boldly challenging London's criminal underworld and a diabolical mastermind. Their investigation leads to opium smuggling, bomb-throwing Irish Fenians, and a strange Dante-worshipping cult. Pearl is a brilliant storyteller, vividly portraying London's literary arts scene and the city's fear and fascination with the occult and a serial killer. Pearl's fans, and fans of historical thrillers, are in for a treat. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.