The Murders in the Rue Morgue (Vintage Classics) [Kindle Edition]

Edgar Allan Poe is rightly acknowledged as the granddaddy of detective fiction and collected here is the proof. In these stories he gave us the basic devices of an entire genre: the genius detective and his sidekick, the locked-room mystery, cyphers, royal spies, and the rigorous logic of arm-chair detection. However, the problem with pioneering an entire genre is that, for ever after, your pioneering efforts are going to look rather amateurish. And this, unfortunately, is the case with Poe: the Auguste Dupin stories may well have given birth to the modern detective story but today, when compared to the works they inspired, they are little more than historically interesting artefacts - and ultimately rather dull. It is simply not possible for us to experience these stories today with anything like the striking freshness they would have had for their original readers. So if you're looking for truly great detective stories, look elsewhere. But if you're seeking the historical origins of detective fiction, this book is just the ticket.

This trilogy of stories featuring C. Auguste Dupin virtually invented the genres of mystery and detective fiction and, for that reason alone, are fascinating reading. This vintage classics version has an excellent introduction by Matthew Pearl, as well as an appendix, containing excerpts from the earliest detective stories, making this a really good buy.

When Poe wrote these stories, the first American bureau of detectives was still five years away from being established. However, many of the elements of future crime novels are here - the locked room mystery, for example, and an examination of the clues to deduce what happened in a methodical way. You could almost hear Poirot's magical brain cells clicking away as Dupin related what had happened and why.

There are three stories here: The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget and The Purloined Letter. The second story was based on a real life murder, which would have been known to Poe's readers. Mary Rogers was a young girl, who was found floating in the Hudson River in 1842 and Poe transplants the story to Paris. Although interesting to read, the characters are not well developed and the relating of evidence by Dupin rather dry. Saying that, these are a must read for anyone who is interested in crime fiction and the extra information in this edition was well presented and gave you great background, making the book much more enjoyable.

To say that I was disappointed or underwhelmed by `The Murders in the Rue Morgue' by Edgar Allan Poe would be some what of an understatement, but stay with me as I can see why it should be read. I have always wanted to get my mitts on a copy of Edgar Allan Poe's tales of Dupin, who is pretty much the first detective in fiction (though I am sure there are others), because I had heard that it is these tales that gave inspiration to the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie who are seen as the great masters of detective fiction in modern times, and who also happen to be two of my favourite authors. I therefore thought that I was going to love this collection.

The collection starts with the title story of the collection. From reading the first page or two I found myself thinking `this is going to be hard work' as a whole three paragraph free pages about analysis of people and I think (and I say that because I was so confused, but simply could not force myself to read it again) Dupin who is the great detective that we come to learn so much more about through his accidental side kick, as the pages then go on finally we get to the murder. In all of the tales of Dupin that deal with murder, for some don't, all I can say is that nothing quite competes with the title story which is a shame as it's the first one so everything sort of goes downhill from there.

I did find the `The Mystery of Marie Roget' quite interesting as it is based on a true tale, so whilst its not as far fetched as the tale before it insightful as to how people looked at murder in the 1840's, or sort of didn't in a way. That brings me to the subject of when the book was written because as I mentioned this collection is seen as the start of the genre of detective fiction, which is why I was so annoyed that it read like both an instruction manual for detection and also like a deconstruction of the whole genre. In fact because so much I have read is based on this book it started to read like a lit crit book of this whole subject and I just couldn't work with it.

You might be sat there thinking `but why is he not telling me about the stories in this collections. Well in truth it's because there aren't many. It's much more about showing how clever Dupin, and therefore Allan Poe, is at solving a mystery and therefore things like character traits, back stories and the very atmosphere of Paris falls by the wayside and so sadly I felt disappointed in every tale. It seemed to me that `The Murders in the Rue Morgue' sadly failed for me because of its credentials. It might be the first of a genre which is now huge and I respect it for that, the thing is people read it then built on it and made something better. I'd recommend this for anyone studying the genre, not for those who want fantastic mysteries, stick to Sherlock if that's the case but do remember who inspired those tales.