The first thing you need to know about this novel is that it’s a marvelous and sustained piece of storytelling, an absolute joy to read if you like tales of suspense. The book is full of incident and stuffed with characters, many of them colorful; I counted twenty-eight “speaking parts” and know I didn’t even come close to getting them all. Still, you won’t get lost because Jack is almost always there, anchoring the tale, and “Death is [his] beat.” The second thing you need to know about The Poet is that it’s genuinely terrifying.
