The three tales that make up Edgar Allan Poe's The Dupin Mysteries introduce us to the cracking character of Chevalier Auguste Dupin.

As a rationalist and practitioner of brilliant deduction, he was to become the template for most of the detective fiction that followed speedily in his wake. The first tale, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", details a form of murder solving that was to become only too familiar. Using his extraordinary intellect, Dupin solves a seemingly baffling crime from the clues left by the perpetrator - clues overlooked by mere mortals like the police.

Narrated by his friend and admirer, and documenting an eccentricity that charms the reader into liking what would otherwise be an insufferable arrogance, the stories bear the obvious mark of what was to become the most famous of detectives: Sherlock Holmes. He is very much a Poe creation, with the gore and horror of the murder details described with a relish and a realism not allowed by many other writers.