THE MURDER OF EDGAR ALLAN POE

Not convinced by recent new reports that Poe died of rabies? Would you believe that he was poisoned instead? When the news of his death reaches Paris, followed by his literary executor Rufus Griswold's notoriously malignant obituary, one man vows to travel to America to investigate: the Chevalier Auguste Dupin, Poe's companion and fellow-detective in ``The Murders in the Rue Morgue'' and ``The Purloined Letter.'' Taking the first ship to Baltimore, Dupin loses no time in arranging an unofficial exhumation of his friend's body, then falling into an affair with Elmira Royster Shelton, the fiancÇe of Poe's last days. His stint of grave-robbing confirms that Poe was poisoned by arsenic—but it's impossible to say who could have administered the fatal dose, especially since the jealous rival editors and authors savaged by Poe's reviews seem to be outnumbered only by the bevy of women romantically linked with Eddie Poe, and their male relatives who'd vowed to horsewhip him or worse. Which one is masquerading as Henry Reynolds, the frustrated writer who, claiming that Poe had stolen all his best material, repays the favor by entrapping Dupin in a climactic scenario cribbed from one of Poe's most popular tales? Hatvary (The Suitor, a 1981 paperback) does yeoman work tracing the literary and amatory tangle of Poe's last years, though, except for despicable Griswold, none of his suspects comes to life on the page. But Edgarphiles may not be able to resist the conceit of his murder being avenged by his most famous fictional creation.