Terri M. LeBlanc
Written on Jan 27, 2017
I know that I saw The Dante Club several years ago in paperback form at Barnes and Noble. The idea of several great authors gathering together to solve a crime intrigued me, but I didn’t pick up the book for whatever reason. So I was delighted to come across the audiobook at Half Price Books and took advantage of a longish road trip to listen to it.
Upon finishing The Dante Club, I can’t help but wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to read the physical copy of this novel instead of listening to it. By the end of the story, I was confused and lost, not quite sure what was going on and who was responsible for committing the murders in Boston. Most of the characters in the story were male and the audiobook narrator was also male who made little distinction between all the male voices. His voice nearly lulled me to sleep on a couple of occasions so I had to take breaks and listen to some upbeat music instead.
It’s also possible that I don’t know enough about Dante’s Inferno to appreciate the depth of this novel and the symbolism and how it connects to the post-Civil War sentiments of the time period in which the story is set. Although I do feel that Pearl did a good job of explaining the key passages and how they were represented in each murder.
In the end, I believe the narrator and his lack of vocal distinction for the numerous male characters in this novel failed me as a reader and lead to a lackluster sentiment towards the story and this intriguing mystery told in relation to Inferno.
