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    'A Dangerous Business' is an entertaining, Poe-inspired murder mystery

    In Jane Smiley's latest novel, inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," characters Eliza and Jean are determined to figure out who killed their missing colleagues.
    by Heller McAlpin Dec 07, 2022 3 minutes
    Source: Knopf

    Since the completion in 2015 of her ambitious multi-generational family saga, The Last Hundred Years trilogy, Jane Smiley has loosened up with two fun novels.

    A Dangerous Business is an entertaining, light murder mystery set in Monterey, California, in 1851 during the Gold Rush. It follows Perestroika in Paris, Smiley's charming, whimsical fable about various squabbling, talking animals (including the titular racehorse) living in the rough in Paris' Champs du Mars.

    The setup of her latest: Two young prostitutes become uneasy when

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