Drood: A Novel

On June 9, 1865, while traveling by train to London with his secret mistress, 53-year-old Charles Dickens -- at the height of his powers and popularity, the most famous and successful novelist in the world and perhaps in the history of the world -- hurtled into a disaster that changed his life forever. Based on the historical details of Charles Dickens's life and narrated by Wilkie Collins (Dickens's friend, frequent collaborator, and Salieri-style secret rival), DROOD explores the still-unsolved mysteries of the

From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. In the course of narrowly escaping death in an 1865 train wreck and trying to rescue fellow passengers, Dickens encounters a ghoulish figure named Drood, who had apparently been traveling in a coffin. 4-city author tour. Collins begins to wonder whether the object of their quest, if indeed the man exists, is merely a cover for his colleague's own murderous inclinations. (Feb.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. Bestseller Simmons (The Terror) brilliantly imagines a terrifying sequence of events as the inspiration for Dickens's last, uncompleted novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood,

A fine meditation on evil--but much too long! Thomas A. Turley Sherlockian scholar David Marcum has noted that only a single generation separates the world of Charles Dickens from the world of Conan Doyle. That fact is evident in Dan Simmons’ literary horror novel Drood, for its characters (most prominently an Iago-like Wilkie Collins and his hero and nemesis, the more famous Charles Dickens) haunt the same dismal London alleys to be prowled, a decade or two later, by Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Lestrade, and Jack the Ripper. Moreover, Collins’ p. And he spins a fantastic tale of pride Jack Dan Simmons sure has a talent for writing. This was the second book of his that I read and both were so well crafted that I came away highly impressed by his skills as an author both times. This book is more about Charles Dickens then it is about the title character, Drood. Mr. Simmons recreates the Victorian Era very realistically. Wilke Collins is the narrator. And he spins a fantastic tale of pride, evil and probable insanity. The character of Wilke Collins reminded me of the character that E. Good Solid Entertainment Gene Stewart Dickens died before finishing his final book, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, but what if Drood were more mysterious as a figure in Dickens's life? Narrated by Wilkie Collins, a close friend of Dickens and a fellow novelist, we learn much about literary envy, rivalry, and competition even as the events grow stranger, darker, and more horrific. Brooding and grotesque things lurk in the fog, a fog both on the land and in Wilkie's drug-addicted mind, as Dan Simmons uses Dickens's life as an armature on