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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The First Unofficial Detective, April 19, 2003
In these 3 short story, Poe introduces to the world for the first time the way of logical deduction, and applies it to an actual ambiguous case.He seems to place much importance in mathematics as being the best exercise for analytic reasoning. Similar thing is seen in Doyle's Holmes, for Doyle asserts that Moriarty, the arch enemy of Sherlock Holmes, is in fact a mathematician. Well aside from that he places much importance on meditation, a habit that is very unfamiliar in most of the world. In the course of the first story, "The Murders of Rue Morgue," the French detective, Dupin, surprises his companion by interfering in his thoughts, an act that was criticized by Holmes in the novel "A Study in Scarlet," and that was practiced by him in some other short story of his. The mystery, on the other hand, was a new one, not a simple one, and the deductions of Dupin were very logical and intriguing. In the second story, "The Mystery of Marie Roget," Poe reconstructs a real crime by merely building up from the newspaper clips he collected over the span of time. He finally solves the mystery in the person of his detective Dupin. Close analysis had showed that the answer provided by Poe was actually the right one. In the third story, "The Purloined Letter," Dupin solves a very easy mystery that puzzled the police force of paris. This book is not at the same level of Doyle's writing, it is a little simpler, but is a nice read, though. That might be true because Doyle had based his detective, Holmes, on Dupin, and had actually attained the fame that forced him to dedicate some of his time for his mysteries.
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