A review by mr_rogers_el_camino
The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl

challenging informative mysterious reflective slow-paced

2.75

I'm not gonna lie, when I started this book it felt like I was back in high school because reading it felt like homework. The authors use of old English dialogue and overwrought sentence structure made me feel like I was back in English 101 struggling through Dickens again. That being said once I got caught up in the story and my poor old brain adapted to the syntax it wasn't that bad. The murder mystery was well thought out and the kills all appropriately grusome, but where the book really excelled was in its supporting characters and rich descriptions of the time period. This included a horrifically detailed account of some of the battles in the Civil War and the devastating effects this had on the soldiers once they returned home and tried to reintegrate into civilian life.