"5 Stars and the Reviewer's Choice Award!...Filled with quirky, larger-than-life characters, irreverent offbeat humor, and a tantalizing mystery, Poe—The Musical is a delightfully fast-paced page-turner...A thoroughly enjoyable read."—Kelle Riley, Scribes World Reviews
"Poe—The Musical is more comedy than mystery. For those who enjoy Monty Python humor, there's enough zaniness and off-beat one liners here to keep them well entertained. Sheils delights in the outrageous and the unbelievable, with no holds barred."—Dr. John A. Broussard, Charlotte Austin Review and quoted in Publisher's Weekly, April 17, 2000
"5 Stars!...Having been a fan of Edgar Allan Poe I eagerly grabbed the e-book Poe—The Musical with a big question: a musical about Edgar Allan Poe? What I got was a great evening's entertainment. T. K. Sheils had me in tears I laughed so hard. He presents his readers with a humorous review of Poe's stories, and a murder to solve, too...I loved the way that Poe's works were woven throughout the entire book, both stories and poems. His life was portrayed in the play in both a humorous and serious way. T. K. Sheils shows his expertise in weaving both those details and his eccentric cast into a comical romp for the reader's pleasure. His use of one-liners keeps his readers rolling in laugher. Sheils’ characters are referenced to be in other books of his. I can't wait to read more. Bravo, Bravo!"—Jan Crow, Sime~Gen Reviews
The rehearsal began the minute Alfie and Hunter had taken their seats in the fifth row of the theater. It was the same scene as before, except that it began earlier than Hunter had originally observed.
The young man playing Poe—who, Alfie whispered, was a fine young tenor named Jess Fletcher—staggered onto the stage in a credible imitation of drunkenness and roughly embraced the rigid young girl—Faith?—whom Hunter had seen as the policeman/woman. She was startled at first but then softened—almost—and returned his embrace, supposedly with mounting passion. As her emotional thermometer was about to soar from cool to tepid, however, the actor, whom Alfie had called Redman, burst onto the scene and bellowed,
“Mis-ter Poe! Unhand my wife and quit my sight! If I lay eyes on you again, it will be in jail!”
Thereupon, Poe staggered downstage onto the apron and into a spotlight, as the scene went dark behind him. Dreamily he began to tell the story of The Tell-Tale Heart, as fog issued from the stage jets, and barely-seen stagehands set up the bedroom at center stage. Then, as Poe reached the place where the protagonist decides to do in his ancient benefactor, the lights came up dimly again, revealing the bedroom with the old man—played, Hunter now recognized, by Finley Heimrat, a fine character actor whom he knew vaguely—tossing restlessly in bed.
The old man was duly smothered—to the heartbeat music, which ceased as he died—and Poe tossed the pillow on the bed. He looked around for a moment, saw the rug, got the idea and proceeded to begin to hide his crime. He dragged the chairs and the carpet away and, seeming to find what he knew to be there, a place where the floorboards could be lifted, he pulled up three of them together—actually the hinged door on the stage trap—and began to stuff the body into the hole.
Then he did something Hunter could not remember him doing at the first run-through.
Jess Fletcher stopped…and stared down into the aperture in the stage.
“Mr. Rangoon?” he said in a small, weak voice.
Alfie Rangoon rose, almost as if he knew what was the matter.
“What is it, Jess?” he breathed.
“There’s somebody already down there,” Jess said softly, “And…he doesn’t look…at all well.”