Disquiet Heart

Description

Pittsburgh, 1847: A cholera epidemic rages, and young women are disappearing...

Augie Dubbins, a former street urchin now grown up and looking for adventure, rushes to be with his old friend Edgar Allan Poe upon hearing of the death of the poet's wife and accompanies him to Pittsburgh at the invitation of a wealthy benefactor. Upon their arrival, the city is teeming with unrest and gray with factory smoke, the air reeking of death after a cholera epidemic kills hundreds of citizens.

What's worse, Augie and Poe soon learn, is that several attractive young women have disappeared over the past six months. As Poe becomes preoccupied with the macabre activities of their host, Augie sets out into the working-class underbelly of Pittsburgh to investigate the darker side of the city's society.

"Disquiet Heart is atmospheric and engaging...especially noteworthy for its accurate and evocative portrayal of early 19th century Pittsburgh. What's more, the climax to the story-and the absolutely chilling solution to the mystery-reads almost like something out of one of Poe's own stories.... The final pages with Poe and Dubbins together on the trail of the miscreants literally vibrate with energy, tension and electricity.... Part ratiocinative detective story, part literary thriller, and part gothic horror tale, Disquiet Heart succeeds on any number of different levels. This is a richly textured story, vivid with emotion and period detail that is not afraid to probe both the heights and depths of human experience." - The Mean Streets Journal