Edgar Allan Poe 200th

This year marks the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe's birth. New books celebrating his mastery of storytelling are: Poe: A Life Cut Short by Peter Ackroyd, On a Raven's Wing ed. by Stuart M. Kaminsky, and In the Shadow of the Master: Classic Tales by Edgar Allan Poe and essays by Jeffrey Deaver, Nelson DeMille and others, ed. by Michael Connelly. In a recent interview, Michael Connelly discusses the book and his own work. Connelly talks about his novel The Poet, which he says "is completely influenced by Poe. As I explain in my In the Shadow of the Master essay, the novel was a means of literary homage and theft. Several lines of Poe’s poetry were used as clues in the book. They were beautiful and eerie: “I dwelt alone in the world of moan.” Until these lines are revealed late in the book as coming from the pen of Edgar Allan Poe, I got the credit for them! It was wonderful." Connelly's next novel, The Scarecrow, is coming out in May 2009. Reporter Jack McEvoy and FBI Agent Rachel Walling are reunited for the first time since The Poet.