Contemporary Authors

• Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster Pegasus Books (New York, NY), 2016

• Author Homepage - https://www.karenleestreet.com

  BIO

  KAREN LEE STREET was born in Philadelphia, moved to England as a teenager, and currently resides in Newcastle, Australia with kookaburras, parrots, possums and other beasties amidst the gum trees outdoors, two Battersea-rescue pair-bonded wondercats indoors, and one semi-tame husband.

  WRITING
  Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster (2016) is the first novel in a Poe & Dupin mystery trilogy. Karen is currently working on a sequel provisionally called Edgar Allan Poe and the Jewel of Peru, set in Philadelphia 1844. The third novel in the trilogy is Edgar Allan Poe and the Empire of the Dead, set in Paris 1849. Point Blank Books (Oneworld Publications) is the UK publisher; Pegasus Books, USA; AST in Russia, and Vulkan in Serbia.

  Karen's previous publications include Writing & Selling Crime Film Screenplays and Tattoos and Motorcycles (a collection of interconnected short stories), articles on screenwriting and cross-arts collaboration, along with a number of commissioned screenplays.

  FILM
  Karen's film career began in Anchorage, Alaska where she was employed for a summer as a documentary runner and programming trainee at a Cable television company. She followed this with freelance work on music videos and short films in London. (Two very different worlds!)

  As Head of Development at the largest script development fund in Europe (the European Script Fund/ European Media Development Agency, MEDIA Programme), Karen created the first pan-European script analysis service and ran Second Stage Funding. During this time, she read an enormous number of scripts, travelled extensively in Europe, and worked with a lot of interesting film-makers.

  She continues to consult for the MEDIA Programme, does freelance script editing,
  and is currently on the Management Committee of Tipping Point Film Fund, a funder of documentary films about international social justice issues.

  TEACHING

  Karen has a PhD in Writing by portfolio from the University of South Wales, which includes a critical paper entitled: "From Nascent-Narrative to Multiverse:
  An Alternative Perspective on Adaptation". She has taught MA-level screenwriting at universities in the UK, Estonia, Latvia, and run training workshops for professional screenwriters in Denmark, Ireland, Latvia, Finland, Sweden, Canada and the UK.

  She is a member of the Crime Writers' Association (UK); Australian Crime Writers Association; Society of Authors UK; Society of Authors Australia; Historical Writers' Association; the British Academy of Film & Television; and is an International Chapter Member of the Australian Academy of Cinema & Television Arts.

  Her passions (besides books and film and travelling) can be fathomed from this:
  https://au.pinterest.com/karenleestreet/

• Author Blog - https://tattoosandmotorcycles.wordpress.com/about/

  About KAREN LEE STREET

  www.KarenLeeStreet.com

  Karen Lee Street’s published works include interconnected short story collection Tattoos and Motorcycles (Gollancz/ Indigo); Writing and Selling Crime Film Screenplays (Kamera Books); and historical crime novel Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster (Point Blank Books), the first in a trilogy of Edgar Allan Poe Mysteries. She has been commissioned to write articles on screenwriting and cross-Arts collaboration and co-wrote published screenplay Honest (Screenpress Books). Karen has also written prize-winning poetry, two guidebooks about stone circles (one for adults, one for children); and a number of commissioned screenplays. She is currently working on Edgar Allan Poe and the Jewel of Peru, the next in the trilogy, which secured a three book deal with the Point Blank imprint of Oneworld Publications (publisher of the 2015 Booker Prize winner); the trilogy will also be published in the USA by Pegasus; Russia by AST; and Serbia by Vulkan.

  Karen is also an experienced feature film script editor and development executive with extensive experience working with both emerging and experienced film-makers throughout Europe and in North America. During her tenure as Head of Development at the European Script Fund/ European Media Development Agency (MEDIA Programme), the largest script development fund in Europe, she created and ran the first pan-European script analysis service. She is currently on the Management Committee of Tipping Point Film Fund, a funder of documentary films about international social justice issues and continues to work as a freelance script editor and screenwriter.

  In May 2015, Karen completed a PhD in Writing by portfolio at the University of South Wales, which included her first Edgar Allan Poe novel; her screenwriting ‘how to’ book; and a thesis entitled: From Nascent-Narrative to Multiverse: An Alternative Perspective on Adaptation.

  Memberships: The Society of Authors (UK); the Australian Society of Authors; the Crime Writers’ Association (UK); the Australian Crime Writers Association; the Historical Writers’ Association; the British Academy of Film and Television Arts; international member of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts.

  logohwa-v1

• Historical Writers Association - https://historicalwriters.org/writer/karen-lee-street/

  KAREN LEE STREET was born in Philadelphia, moved to England as a teenager, and currently lives in Newcastle, Australia. Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster (Oneworld, April, 2016) is her debut novel and the first in a Poe & Dupin mystery trilogy. The novel is primarily set in 1840 London, with flashbacks to the reign of the London Monster, 1788 – 1790, the infamous villain who attacked over fifty women, slashing their dresses. Book II, Edgar Allan Poe and the Jewel of Peru, takes place in Philadelphia 1844 and deals with ornithomancy, bird collecting, and the Cloud People of the Chachapoyas. Edgar Allan Poe and the Empire of the Dead will be set in Paris 1849, pitting Poe and Dupin against the man who destroyed the Dupin family during the Reign of Terror. Karen’s previous publications include Writing & Selling Crime Film Screenplays and Tattoos and Motorcycles, a collection of interconnected short stories that take place in a small American town over a hundred years. Karen is also a screenwriter and has extensive experience as a script editor and feature film development executive. She has a PhD in Writing from the University of South Wales and has taught screenwriting at universities and training organisations in the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Finland and Sweden.

• IMDB - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0834082/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

  Karen Lee Street joined the European Script Fund, the MEDIA Programme's pilot film and television development programme, at its inception as Head of Development and Second Stage Funding. She facilitated the development of all funded projects; created and ran the first pan-European script analysis service; and selected projects for additional funding. The European Script Fund co-developed numerous award winning films and supported the projects of both established and emerging producers, writers, and directors. Street continues to consult for the MEDIA Programme, is a freelance script editor, and a novelist.
  - IMDb Mini Biography By: Noir-ish

• Fantastic Fiction - https://www.fantasticfiction.com/s/karen-lee-street/

  Karen Lee Street
  USA flag

  Author, screenwriter, script editor. Represented by Oliver Munson, A.M. Heath Literary Agents (London). Fan of Wilderesque comedy, crime, & Noir in films and literature; dirty realism photography & storytelling; blues-based music, outsider art, folklore/ fairytales, historical. Collector of vintage geegaws, gimcracks, jewels, oddities. Wildlife, nature, & running enthusiast. Edgar Allan Poe & the London Monster is the first in a trilogy of mysteries featuring sleuths Edgar Allan Poe and C. Auguste Dupin. Member of Crime Writers' Association and The Historical Writers Association. I primarily review books I've particularly enjoyed reading in hopes of introducing them to new readers; I'm beyond persevering with books that are not my cup of tea.

  Novels
  Edgar Allan Poe and The London Monster (2016)
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5/9/17, 2)54 PM
Print Marked Items
Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster
Publishers Weekly.
263.33 (Aug. 15, 2016): p51. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster
Karen Lee Street. Pegasus Crime (Norton, dist.), $25.95 (384p) ISBN 978-1-68177-220-2
Street's impressive first novel cleverly pairs Poe with his fictional creation, the Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin. In 1840, Poe travels to England after receiving a parcel from his stepmother containing a bundle of letters that appear to implicate Poe's maternal grandparents in a series of real-life crimes committed decades earlier. Between 1788 and 1790, women were terrorized by the so-called London Monster, who cut "the derrieres of over fifty victims." Though a man was eventually charged with the crimes, doubt lingered about his guilt, leaving room for Poe to wonder whether his mother's parents, actors Elizabeth and Henry Arnold, might have actually been responsible for them. Poe's friend Dupin meets him in London to sort out the truth about the past and about the person who's stalking him in the present. That foe seems to have almost supernatural abilities, having somehow gotten hold of a letter Poe wrote his wife that was tossed overboard during his transatlantic voyage. Street maintains atmospheric suspense throughout. Agent: Oli Munson, AM. Heath (U.K.). (Oct.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster." Publishers Weekly, 15 Aug. 2016, p. 51. PowerSearch,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA461444525&it=r&asid=9a47bddce1e906acd4c0d6be20e9209e. Accessed 9 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A461444525
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• Nudge Book
  https://nudge-book.com/blog/2016/04/edgar-allan-poe-the-london-monster-by-karen-lee-street/
  Word count: 474

  Edgar Allan Poe & the London Monster by Karen Lee Street
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  Review published on April 19, 2016.

  This delightfully entertaining read is set in the summer of 1840, when Poe travels to London to meet Dupin, who is an experienced detective, a ratiocinative, making him very Sherlock Holmes-esque. Poe requires Dupin’s help to solve a mystery regarding some letters he has inherited. These letters have allegedly been written by his grandparents, who were struggling actors and suggest they were involved in the infamous London Monster assaults that terrorised ladies between 1788 and 1790 by slicing the clothes and derrieres of over 50 women.

  A man was eventually arrested and tried for these assaults, narrowly avoiding being hung for his crimes, but this novel suggests he was wrongly arrested and adds these letters to the mix to engineer a clever and plausible alternative fictional history.

  For this reason the letters are interspersed within the body of the book, which stimulates the cogitations of both Poe and Dupin as they consider possible implications that require further lines of inquiry. Poe at first thinks the letters may be an elaborate hoax, but along with some unusual occurrences, that include Poe being assaulted and receiving unsettling correspondence, there appear to be connections between these letters and events that are centred around him.

  Poe is depicted as a portly, uncertain individual, at times plagued by doubt and dominated by Dupin, an intense, humourless individual who enjoys being superior. Poe in his desire to rule out his grandparent’s involvement in the crimes is very open to suggestion and manipulation, that some people are keen to exploit. However Poe does learn to think for himself with more surety as the story evolves and he and Dupin form more of a partnership. Dupin’s sharp observational skills along with his strong deductive logic, gives their sleuthing good momentum. Dupin has issues of his own to solve, which allows us to see flaws in his character, making him more personable – giving Poe the opportunity to reciprocate some support.

  Street has produced a fascinating portrayal of London at that time, the surroundings are vivid and she has even managed to include Charles Dickens in the storyline. The discourse is florid and a joy to indulgently read. The plot comes together skilfully in a flowing manner with a satisfying denouement. Pleasingly, a further book will follow that will take the story across to Philadelphia where Poe lived at that time. With strong characterisation, a well-crafted plot and engaging dialogue and description, it ticked every box and subsequently I thought it was a great quality read.

  Sara Garland
  Personal 5
  Group 5

  Edgar Allan Poe & the London Monster by Karen Lee Street
  Point Blank 9781780749303 hbk April 2016

  dir89

• Kirkus Reviews
  https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/karen-lee-street/edgar-allan-poe-and-the-london-monster/
  Word count: 376

  EDGAR ALLAN POE AND THE LONDON MONSTER
  by Karen Lee Street
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  KIRKUS REVIEW
  1840: Edgar Allan Poe and Auguste Dupin race to uncover the truth about a violent scandal involving Poe’s actor grandparents and a notorious London criminal in Street's debut novel.

  Carrying a mysterious cache of letters that point toward a connection between the Arnolds and the Monster of London, infamous for attacking several ladies in the late 1780s, Poe travels to London to meet his most famous character, here a living, breathing, and very cerebral detective. Someone desiring revenge on the true Monster cunningly reveals more hints in the form of additional letters from time to time during the investigation. This nemesis also preys upon Poe’s emotional instability, exploiting his weaknesses and frequently sending him into a faint. Dupin, as it turns out, is also chasing an obsession in London: the identity of the man who betrayed his family during the French Revolution. The two men work together to find answers to their respective mysteries as the clock runs down, leading to a final showdown—in creepy catacombs, of course. The novel begins with an unnecessary author’s note describing its inspiration from true events, which lessens, rather than intensifies, the impact of a novel and main character whose strength must lie in imagination. The other pit into which Street falls (Poe-ish pun intended) is the difficulty of imbuing a famous artist and a beloved character with originality. Poe in particular comes across as a poor caricature of himself, overly dramatic and rather pathetic. Dupin, in contrast, begins as a one-note character but gains complexity as his past and secrets are revealed. Elizabeth and Henry Arnold, brought to life only in their letters, provide the most amusement in the tale.

  A bit like the newly imagined Sherlock Holmes movies: a dose of drama, a dash of darkness, and a little bit of humor ultimately liven up the journey.

  Pub Date: Oct. 11th, 2016
  ISBN: 9781681772202
  Page count: 384pp
  Publisher: Pegasus
  Review Posted Online: July 20th, 2016

• Mystery Scene Magazine
  http://mysteryscenemag.com/26-reviews/books/5513-edgar-allan-poe-and-the-london-monster?highlight=WyJiZW5qYW1pbiIsImJlbmphbWluJ3MiLCJib3VsZGVuIiwiYmVuamFtaW4gYm91bGRlbiJd
  Word count: 323

  Books
  Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster
  by Karen Lee Street
  Pegasus Crime, October 2016, $25.95

  streetedgarallanpoeandthelondonmonster
  Buy at Amazon
  Shop at Indie Bound
  Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster is an impressive and stylish first novel. Its inspiration is factual—a maniac dubbed the London Monster terrorized fashionable women in 18th century London by cutting or stabbing their “derrieres” on public streets—but its telling is fictional.

  Edgar Allan Poe, as suggested by the title, is the protagonist and he is joined by his own literary creation C. Auguste Dupin, the detective in Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” The year is 1840, 50 years since the London Monster’s last known victim, and Edgar Allan Poe has in his possession several letters written between his maternal grandparents, Elizabeth and Henry Arnold, both actors, that appear to implicate them in the crime. It piques the curiosity of both Poe and Dupin, who meet in London to solve the mystery, and are indirectly aided by an elusive stalker of Poe's who mysteriously provides additional letters with clues to help the two detectives in their quest.

  Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster is both unique and entertaining. Edgar Allan Poe is painted as something of his own stereotype (drunken, neurotic), Dupin is refreshingly vivid and well drawn, and the Arnolds—made known only through their letters—are enjoyably eccentric. The mystery is familiar, but its true strength is the atmospheric telling and its literary playfulness. As an example of the latter, the promotional copy for the novel states that “over 30 Poe stories, poems, and essays” are alluded to in the narrative, of which I counted only a handful. Another bit of whimsy is the character of Charles Dickens, a constant correspondent of Poe's, though one who is far too busy to make a personal appearance.

  Benjamin Boulden

• Crime Review
  http://crimereview.co.uk/page.php/review/3929
  Word count: 470

  Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster
  by Karen Lee Street
  Edgar Allan Poe summons his detective friend C Auguste Dupin to London to solve a mystery.

  Review
  Edgar Allan Poe, the American writer, editor and literary critic, was hardly the most stable of men. Although regarded as a central figure of American literature and inventor of the detective fiction genre, he is often represented as a mad genius or tormented artist exploiting his personal struggles. Many such depictions blend with characters from his stories, suggesting Poe and his characters share identities.

  Karen Lee Street has taken full advantage of both traits. One of his most famous characters, the French detective le Chevalier C Auguste Dupin, appears here as a real person, scarcely more ‘together’ than Poe himself – in fact, almost a mirror image of the jittery, death-obsessed author.

  Their complexes, phobias and insecurities all add to a superbly morbid, dark and Gothic mystery. Clever, witty, and wonderfully researched, it offers a re-imaging of the salient details of Poe’s life, and the repositioning of his relationship with his finest creation.

  There are plenty of tricks, hints and allusions to Poe’s work – I caught those to The Raven, Murders In The Rue Morgue and Fall Of The House of Usher – which add a layer of reader participation. And the use of the infamous case of the ‘London Monster’ – either a sick individual or a group who terrorised the capital’s fashionable women some 70 years before by slashing their backsides – adds another layer of interest.

  Poe has summoned Dupin to London in the hope the great detective can help him solve a family mystery. He has inherited a box containing letters which appear to implicate his actor grandparents to the Monster’s crimes. They set out to prove the missives forgeries. But as they delve deeper, past horrors emerge and they begin to suspect they are being watched. Who are their stalkers and what is their connection to the Monster?

  It’s beautifully constructed with some lush prose, alive with the feel of the period, and all the darkness, violence and treachery one would expect of Poe himself – who some readers may well find one of the more objectionable characters!

  This is a dark, but very satisfying mystery, combining first-class writing with suspense and unease and perfectly set in an authentically Dickensian London. This is also a hugely intelligent literary crime thriller which will keep you guessing throughout – and promises to be the start of a series featuring Poe and Dupin in the years before the author’s own mysterious death in 1849, found wandering and dying in a Boston street wearing someone else’s clothes!
  Reviewed 11 October 2016 by John Cleal

• Crime Time
  http://www.crimetime.co.uk/mag/index.php/showarticle/4514
  Word count: 657

  Edgar Allan Poe And The London Monster: Karen Lee Street Talks To Crime Time
  Barry Forshaw

  Karen Lee Street is the author of Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster (Point Blank Books, 7 April 2016, Hardback £14.99), the first of a trilogy. She is a screenwriter and her publications include Tattoos and Motorcycles, a collection of short stories linked by a crime, and Writing and Selling Crime Film Screenplays. This is her first novel.
  WRITING THE DETECTIVES
  Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster has two amateur detectives, the highly experienced C. Auguste Dupin, a man the Prefect of the Paris police turns to when a mystery proves too baffling, and Edgar Allan Poe, writer turned reluctant sleuth when he inherits letters that suggest his grandparents are criminals. Of course Edgar Allan Poe invented C. Auguste Dupin, the great ratiocinator who solves "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt", and "The Purloined Letter", but that doesn't stop Poe and Dupin from joining forces (in my novel), two men who look startlingly similar, but have quite different characters.
  In writing the sleuthing duo in action, I didn't want Poe to be as passive as the unnamed narrator of his detective stories, a character who merely observes Dupin's incredible skills of ratiocination. He had to participate in the investigation also. But when working with the amateur detective par excellence, how does one get a look in on the action?
  I felt Poe would be too emotionally engaged initially to be usefully objective about the mystery he finds himself in and rather than focus on the evidence, he gets caught up in the desire to prove the innocence of his grandparents. And this desire leaves him completely open to being manipulated by his antagonist.
  Dupin's own personal mission, a subplot in the novel, gave me the opportunity to show the analytical side of Poe, to allow him to use the skills that made him an excellent literary critic and short story writer. The subplot deals with events that left his family in reduced circumstances, and Dupin determined to avenge them. When he is humiliated in an attempt to achieve this, his calm facade crumbles and his analytical skills suffer. Poe then picks up the slack and discovers clues hidden in plain view regarding Dupin's nemesis.
  But I wanted Poe to became more active in his own investigation, to grow beyond attempting to preserve an idealised notion of his family to genuinely trying to find out the truth about them, especially as the consequences of avoiding this might be his own murder. I wasn't sure how best to do this, so I revisited my book Writing and Selling Crime Film Screenplays and reviewed the general conventions of the amateur detective sub-genre. The sleuthing duo had rigorously examined the evidence delivered to Poe, a box of letters allegedly written by his grandparents that describe their activities as the so-called London Monster who terrorised the ladies of London between 1788 and 1790. Dupin had made extensive use of the 'tools of his trade': keen observation, deductive reasoning, objectivity, and expertise in autography, phrenology, and solving intellectual puzzles. I had yet to address one important element, however: interviewing witnesses and suspects.
  As the attacks described in the letters had occurred fifty years previously, it was very much a 'cold case' and interviewing witnesses hadn't immediately sprung to mind. I decided that Poe would hope to track down some of the Monster's youngest victims whereas Dupin would prefer to retreat to the library and scour newspaper accounts from the era. And as Dupin's cool objectivity is rattled further by his own nemesis, Poe at last takes the lead in investigating his mystery and as he does, discovers uncomfortable truths about his family that further bruise his ego, but may also save his life.

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  Posted at 10:01PM Wednesday 23 Mar 2016

• Wild Hunt Magazine
  https://wildhuntmag.com/non-fiction/microreviews-edgar-allan-poe-and-the-london-monster-doreen-and-before-the-feast
  Word count: 181

  Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster* by Karen Lee Street

  The first in a planned series, Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster will engage a number of different readers. Street taps into Poe lore, history, and hoaxes served with a dollop of detective fiction. The 19th Century American writer and his fictional detective, Auguste Dupin, are on the case to solve a baffling family mystery. Poe receives a box of letters supposedly written between his stage actor grandparents, which leads the reader to believe that they were behind the London Monster attacks of the late 1700s. After sailing to England, Poe meets up with detective Dupin and the two are off to solve the authenticity of the letters. Mystery and long-forgotten memories, of course, start to poke through. Street clearly channels the motifs of both Edgar Allan Poe and of Gothic stories of the time (suckers for epistolary novels will get their fix). Readers won't be disappointed, and Street leaves you itching to go back and re-read those classic Poe stories from your student days.