The American Boy - Hardcover

Taylor, Andrew Jr.

3.6

3,368 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 000710961X ISBN 13: 9780007109616

Publisher: Flamingo, 2003

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Interweaving real and fictional elements, The American Boy is a major new literary historical crime novel in the tradition of An Instance of the Fingerpost and Possession. England 1819. Two enigmatic Americans arrive in London and soon after a bank collapses. A man is found dead and horribly mutilated on a building site. Another goes missing in the teeming stews of Seven Dials. A deathbed vigil ends in an act of theft. A beautiful heiress flirts with her inferiors. At the edge of all these mysteries is the American boy Edgar Allan Poe, brought to England by his foster father and sent to the leafy village of Stoke Newington to be educated. Drawn into this web of intrigue is a poor schoolmaster, Thomas Shield, who struggles to understand what is happening before it destroys him and those he loves. But the truth, like the youthful Poe himself, has its origins in the new world as well as the old. The American Boy is a 21st-century novel with a 19th-century voice. It is both a multi-layered literary murder mystery and a love story, its setting ranging from the coal-scented fogs of late Regency London to the stark winter landscapes of rural Gloucestershire. And at its heart is the boy who does not really belong anywhere, an actor who never learns the significance of his part.

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About the Author:

Andrew Taylor is the award-winning author of a number of crime novels, including the Dougal series, the Lydmouth books and the Roth Trilogy, which was adapted into the acclaimed ITV drama `Fallen Angel'. `The American Boy' was a 2005 Richard & Judy Book Club choice. He has won many awards, including the CWA John Creasey Award, an Edgar Scroll from the Mystery Writers of America and the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Daggers (the only author to win it twice). He and his wife live with their children in the Forest of Dean.

From AudioFile:

Through the voice of Alex Jennings, we are guided through a tale of darkness and romance, intrigue and mystery, which features Edgar Allan Poe's father and young Poe himself as the epon-ymous boy. Jennings reads with such enormous variety that we are consumed by his characterizations, which include wheezing drunkards, schoolboys, and shy housemaids. He fulfills the role of a schoolmaster who is haphazardly drawn into the lives of two of his students. Through their families he becomes entangled in a network of questions and oddities that could result in his own death. The listener becomes completely absorbed with the persona of the novel. J.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright � AudioFile, Portland, Maine

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