Karen Lee Street, ktorá teraz žije v Austrálii, čerpá zo svojich raných rokov v strašidelnom pensylvánskom statku, odkiaľ pramení náznaky gotiky, ktoré presakujú do jej tvorby. Jej kriticky uznávané historické detektívky sledujú dobrodružstvá Edgara Allana Poea a C. Augusta Dupina pri riešení dávnych zločinov a záhad. Jej príbehy sú pretkané atmosférou, tajomstvom a občasnou zbraňou, ktorá sa objaví v najmenej očakávanú chvíľu.
In this reimagined mystery, Poe and his fictional detective Dupin are friends who solve crimes together. Among anti-immigrant upheaval in Philadelphia in 1844, they are mystified by the arrival of a package of mummified bird parts and a young heiress in distress.
Summer, 1840. Edgar Allan Poe sails from Philadelphia to London to meet his friend C. Auguste Dupin, with the hope that the great detective will help him solve a family mystery. For Poe has inherited a mahogany box containing a collection of letters allegedly written by his grandparents, Elizabeth and Henry Arnold. The Arnolds were actors who struggled to make a living on the London stage, but the mysterious letters suggest that the couple has a more clandestine and nefarious lifestyle, stalking well-to-do young women at night, to slice their clothing and derrieres. Poe hopes to prove the missives forgeries; Dupin wonders if perhaps they are real, but their content fantasy. Soon Poe is being stalked by someone who knows far more about his grandparents and their crimes than he does. And then he remembers disturbing attacks made upon him as a child in London—could the perpetrators be connected?
'And I prayed that I would find a way to tell my most honorable friend, the Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin, the truth about how I had finally been murdered, and by whom.'