Critical Review: "The Pale Blue Eye" by Louis Bayard

Quick Summary

Type: Novel, audiobook

Genre: Historical fiction, mystery

Back Cover: "At West Point Academy in 1830, the calm of an October evening is shattered by the discovery of a young cadet's body swinging from a rope just off the parade grounds. An apparent suicide is not unheard of in a harsh regimen like West Point's, but the next morning, an even greater horror comes to light. Someone has stolen into the room where the body lay and removed the heart.

At a loss for answers and desperate to avoid any negative publicity, the Academy calls on the services of a local civilian, Augustus Landor, a former police detective who acquired some renown during his years in New York City before retiring to the Hudson Highlands for his health. Now a widower, and restless in his seclusion, Landor agrees to take on the case. As he questions the dead man's acquaintances, he finds an eager assistant in a moody, intriguing young cadet with a penchant for drink, two volumes of poetry to his name, and a murky past that changes from telling to telling. The cadet's name? Edgar Allan Poe.

Impressed with Poe's astute powers of observation, Landor is convinced that the poet may prove useful - if he can stay sober long enough to put his keen reasoning skills to the task. Working in close contact, the two men - separated by years but alike in intelligence - develop a surprisingly deep rapport as their investigation takes them into a hidden world of secret societies, ritual sacrifices, and more bodies. Soon, however, the macabre murders and Landor's own buried secrets threaten to tear the two men and their newly formed friendship apart."

Read Time: 4 stars

Rating: 1.5 stars

Review

Overall, this book was a bit of a disappointment. I think one of the things that contributed to that was that I was not the target audience for it. I saw a review on Goodreads that said that while women have 'chick lit', this book was 'dick lit' and that review was right.

First of all, the language was very flowery. I understand that the author was trying to match the vibe of the era, but it meant that when he was writing in Edgar Allan Poe's voice, the language was obnoxious. He (the author) started too hard and it hurt him.

Second, the romance was annoying and not what I was promised. I was promised a murder mystery. What I got was a romance set on the backdrop of a murder mystery. Granted, I had trouble paying attention (I was listening to the audiobook and it was so boring), but there were very few times when they seemed to be actually looking for clues and trying to solve the murder. Instead, I got Landor's romance with Patsy and Poe's romance with Lea, and both were annoying.

Third, it bugged me that so many historical facts were mistaken. First and foremost of those, Edgar Allan Poe was enrolled at West Point under the name Edgar Perry. The fact that that basic fact was misrepresented was very annoying.

And finally, the representation of the female characters sucked. The women in this book existed exclusively to serve the men in the book. They had no personality, no drive outside the men in their lives. I really did not like the representation of women in this book.

Overall, this book was boring and treated its female characters poorly. There wasn't enough mystery, and the twist was kind of...eh. It's not a book I would recommend, and it's a testimony to the power white men still hold in the artistic industry that this was just recently made into a movie. Don't fear, white men of America: your position at the top of our society is still well-secured.