The plot of The Man Who Was Poe mirrors the tradition of detective stories, which Edgar Allan Poe established with his groundbreaking works. The story takes place during Poe's lifetime, specifically during the winter of 1848, and includes Edgar Allan Poe as one of its major characters. The story begins as a locked-room mystery. A young boy named Edmund Brimmer returns to his hotel room one night to find his sister has mysteriously vanished from the locked room. There is no sign of forced entry and no other entry point to the room besides the window. The room is on the top floor of a tall tenement building. Poor Edmund is left alone in a seedy part of town in Providence, Rhode Island. To make matters worse, he hails from England, and this is his first time visiting the foreign land of America. Edmund and Sis came...