Linda Fairstein’s Backstory for ENTOMBED

Two years ago, I read a news article about New York University’s plan to demolish an old building in Greenwich Village. Several writers groups protested because they wanted the tenement to be given landmark status, even though it was of no architectural significance. Edgar Allan Poe had lived there briefly, and had written one of his signature tales about premature burial while under that roof – The Cask of Amontillado. I had that ‘whomp on the chest’ moment that Tess Gerritsen described earlier on this site. I knew immediately that when the demolition began, bricked up behind a wall in Poe’s old home would be the skeleton of a young woman, and that my prosecutorial protagonist – Alex Cooper – would be compelled to combine her investigative skills and her love of literature to find the killer.

Like many adolescents, my first encounter with Poe’s Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque made an indelible impression on my imagination. A dead man’s heart beating beneath the floorboards, the huge pendulum descending on a prisoner in the pit, and the repeated torment of entombment behind cellar walls – each of these narratives was responsible for youthful nightmares, and all have lured me back over the years to delight in their dramatic power and poetic elegance.

That Poe was capable of such a body of work – short stories, poems, journalistic pieces, and literary criticism – is even more remarkable when one considers his short life and its tragic circumstances. I took this opportunity to reread ten volumes of his writing, and every biography I could get my hands on. The dreadful events that shaped his life could more easily have nurtured a serial killer than a creative genius. Several cities claim the great master of crime fiction as their own – Boston, Baltimore, Richmond, Philadelphia – so I was greatly surprised to find the many places in New York where Poe lived, and in which some of his most enduring works were written.

So Coop and her favorite detectives – Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace – traveled with me to Poe Park in the Bronx and the still-standing cottage to which Poe moved with his beloved child bride, to the stunning Botanical Gardens - New York City’s only native forest and waterfall, to which the poet walked regularly for inspiration – and to America’s first Hall of Fame, a dramatic open-air colonnade a century old, with fabulous bronze busts of Poe and ninety other great artists, warriors and inventors. To no one’s surprise, these sites take on an added dimension of danger as Coop and the guys move among them to try to determine why someone would copy the distinctive means of murder made so vivid by the father of the detective story….the great Edgar Allan Poe.

Linda Fairstein, the former head of the Manhattan District Attorney's Sex Crimes Unit, is the bestsellling author of seven novels featuring Alex Cooper and one of my personal favorite storytellers.

Comments

[David Thayer]

Melisse,

This is outstanding. I haven't read Linda Fairstein or Amulya Malladi, but I'll try to rectify that pronto.

David

[Allison Brennan]

I've read every Linda Fairstein novel since FINAL JEOPARDY and I have never been disappointed. She's on my must buy list and I can't wait to dive into her latest.

Allison

[Katharine Weber]

What a great essay, Linda! I look forward to the book.

[Sharon]

First time I have ordered anything immediately after reading a backstory.. It's is suppose to ship next week. I am looking forward to the read.

[sandra norgate]

Yes - Linda Fairstein books are great. She writes with such insight and feeling and particularly as she herself knows exactly how the system works. Her background research is excellent-I'm going to read some Poe now!

Sandra

[Rebecca]

I have read all of Linda Fairstein's books. I just finished "Entombed" and found, as usual, the historical references enlightening and a cause for further research. The Poe connection was great!