Since this book of life imitating art was billed as a literary mystery, I had great expectations but was a trifle disappointed. I didn't mind that it was somewhat gory, but it was a bit too slow-paced. The title refers to a group of men, including Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Russell Lowell, who are assisting Longfellow in the first American translation of Dante's Divine Comedy in Boston. Oddly enough, the Harvard board has some objections to this work, due to anti-Catholic sentiment and because Italian is a modern language and therefore not worth studying. The Dante Club soon realizes that several local murders are apparently inspired by Dante's Inferno and that they may become suspects. Consequently, they embark on some clandestine investigations of their own. The source of the leak of Dante information is very obvious, but the identity of the real culprit, whom they dub "Lucifer," is not. Still, the book is not particularly suspenseful, although the casting of Longfellow as an amateur sleuth is refreshing, I guess. The author does do a good job of evoking the post-Civil War times, and his expansion of the personalities of well-known poets is entertaining.
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