Nevermore, by Harold Schechter

Harold Schechter, who has written several true-crime books regarding serial killers, has written four novels featuring Edgar Allan Poe as narrator and detective (along with the help of other historic personages.) Considering Schechter's penchant for documenting serial killers, you can rest assured that each of the Poe books will have some gruesome deaths...

I have only read the first book, Nevermore, and while I liked 90% of it, the graphic descriptions of the murders did put me off. Of course, anyone who reads books in which the coroner is the detective will be used to that kind of gore and not mind it!

Schechter's contention is that some of the events that happened real-life to Poe he then used for his short stories, like "The Fall of the House of Usher." Poe is a sympathetic character (as he was in real life, apparently. After his death, his "executor" turned out to be a man who really, really disliked him, and set about besmirching his name while profiting from his writing!)

At the beginning of this story, EA Poe is living in Baltimore with his 13-year old cousin and his cousin's mother. (Yes, Poe marries his cousin, but it must be remembered that back then, girls did get married very, very young. [Today, they just have sex very, very young.]]

He has written a review of Davy Crockett's autobiography, and that gentleman is so upset by it that he calls upon Poe and wants to have a public duel. Poe agrees. Before they can fight, however, they stumble across a murder....the first of several. Poe, the creator of Auguste Dupin, sees some clues that the police miss. This so impresses Crockett that he forgets the duel, and they team up to solve the crimes.

A few sample paragraphs:
"Where is Virginia?" I inquired after planting a filial kiss upon my aunt's ruddy cheek.

"Still abed."

"She sleeps like the dead." I remarked with a heartfelt sigh. "It is the repose of the innocent."

Muddy's broad broaw wrinkled as she inspected my countenance. "My gracious, Eddie, but you do look peaked. Another bad night?"

I acknowledged the accuracy of her observation with a melancholy nod. "Slumber - that blessed but fickle benefactress-withheld her sweet nepenthe from my soul."

She regarded me for a long moment before inquiring, "Do I take that to mean 'yes'?"

"That is, indeed, the significance I intended."

She patted my cheek. "Poor troubled boy," she commiserated. "I cannot help but believe that you would sleep more soundly if you spent less time locked up in that stuffy room, brooding on death and premature burial and whatnot. Perhapos you should try writing something...cheerier. Why, look at that delightful poem by Mr. Longfello, "The Village Smithy." Surely you could compose something equally charming if you would only put your miond ti it."

The earnest, if misguided, simplicity of my dear, well-meaning Muddy elicited from my lips a soft, indulgent laugh-whosde tone, however, was not untinged with a rueful awareness that the man of creative genius must ever be misunderstood, even by those most sympathetic to his strivings.

"Oh, Muddy!" I exclaimed. "Can I not make you see? The true artist must endeavour to give shape to the teeming phantasmagoria of the soul-to those swirling shapes and shrouded forms that spring, like a hideous throng of netherworld demonds, from the dark inner reaches of his own harrowed heart and anguished brain!"

The humor in the book comes from dialog such as this, where Poe's takes in two paragraphs what a simple person would say in two words. Usually, the dialog is between Davey Crockett, an intelligent man who neverthless speaks with a rustic accent, and Poe. However, these are not so frequently placed to be annoying, and overall Poe proves himself to be a man of rare courage. (The definition of courage being someone who feels the fear and does it anyway. This Poe is a man who feels the terror and does it anyway.)

Nevermore - Edgar Allan Poe joins Davy Crockett to solve a series of shocking murders in Baltimore in 1835.
The Hum Bug (2001) - Poe teams with Showman PT Barnum to solve a series of murders in New York.
Mask of the Red Death (2004) - Poe joins forces with Kit Carson to track down a liver-eating murderer. This also takes place in New York.
The Tell-Tale Corpse - Poe meets author Louisa May Alcott while in Massachusetts and they team up to solve a murder.

Dead March, by Ann McMillan

Here's the description from Amazon:

Narcissa Powers, a young Virginia widow consigned to a dismal existence in the country home of her sister-in-law, receives an urgent summons from family friends of her beloved brother, Charley.

Shortly after she rushes to his side, he dies of a disease that should have caused only a minor infection. The mystery of his death is compounded when Narcissa finds a fragment of a half-burned letter from Charley that someone has hidden in her Bible. Wanting to do right by her brother and avoid returning to the doldrums of her country existence, Narcissa plunges into the turmoil of Richmond in the days between Fort Sumter and the first great battle of the Civil War.

A colorful collection of plausible characters gather in the parlors and back alleys of Richmond--a British journalist, a dashing but arrogant young doctor, a cruel overseer, and Judah Daniel, a freedwoman who is also the local herbalist and "conjure woman." Each will be a part of the eventual unraveling of the mystery.

Sample paragraphs

"Mrs. Powers, I am so glad that you have come. Your dear brother...I hope that he will know you...I pray that your visit will do him some good." Mrs. Hughes seemed to be near tears. Narcissa felt the shock of her words and leaned for a moment on her supporting arm.

They went in through the open door. Narcissa had a vague impression of the inside of the house as elegant, formal, with dark, polished wood and rich, red-toned brocades. Mrs. Hughes and her maidservant were thoughtful, quickly and quietly helping Narcissa remove her traveling clothes and seeing to her luggage. She was led into the other half of the double house, then down a hallway tiled with squares of rose and gray stone, uncarpeted. They passed a book-lined office, then came to a door that stood ajar.

Rachel Hughes stopped. Rather than rudely pull away from the woman's grasp on her arm, Narcissa halted as well, though she wanted nothing save to get through that door to Charley.

"I can hardly bear to tell you..." Rachel Hughes spoke hesitantly. "They thought it best to amputate his left arm. My husband can tell you more; I will send at once to let him know you are here."

Narcissa could not take in the meaning of her words. She could see in her mind's eye Charley's hands, strong to rein in a runaway horse, gentle to bandage a hurt kitten. He was going to be a doctor; he would need both his hands.

Ann McMillan has written three Civil War era mysteries featuring white American Narcissa Powers, black American Judah Daniel, and British correspondent Brit Wallace.

Dead March - first in series
Angel Trumpet
Civil Blood
Chickahominy Fever
Castle Thunder (Kindle edition)

The Case of the Murdered Muckraker, by Carola Dunn

1923 Remington Portable typewriter

The Case of the Murdered Muckraker, by Carola Dunn, takes place in 1923. It is the tenth Daisy Dalrymple mystery. Daisy is now married to Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard. They are on their honeymoon. While ALec is in Washington consulting with the US government Daisy visits New York to see her magazine editor (for she is a writer, making her living by selling articles to magazines, a British Nellie Bly).

While at her publisher's, she sees Otis Carmody, the "murdered muckraker" of the title, shot, and then plummet to his death down an elevator shaft. Daisy at once sets out to solve the mystery.

At one point in her adventure, she meets Bessie Coleman, the first black woman to earn a pilot's license, who had a barnstorming career from 1921 to 1926, when she will die after falling out of a plane (in which she was not the pilot) while scoping out her stunt flying routine at the local airport for an up-and-coming airshow. (Bessie Coleman's presence is incidental to the plot, any aviator would have done. It's strictly an "appearance."

Some sample paragraphs:

Voices raised in anger: in the quiet when the clacking of the typewriter keys ceased, as Daisy reached the bottom of a page, the uffled sound came through the wall from the room next door.

It was not the first time. Apparently her neighbor was not of a conciliatory nature. This time there were two men and a women, Daisy was pretty sure, but try as she might, she could not make out the words. None of her business, she told herself firmly, and turned her attention back to her work.

Squealing, the REmington reluctantly released the two sheets of paper and the carbon between. Daisy ysed them to fan herself. Not yet accustomed to the indoor temperature preferred by New Yorkers, and bred as she was to an age-old tradition of roaring fires tempered by icy draughts, she found the hotel room stifling. Her battle with the balky radiator had been less successful than that with the typewriter provided by the management.