The
Last Dickens
Non-series
Matthew
Pearl
Random
House (Trade Paperback)
ISBN-10: 0-8129-7802-1 (0812978021)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8129-7802-5 (9780812978025)
Publication Date: October 2009
List Price: $15.00
Synopsis (from the publisher): Boston, 1870. When news of Charles Dickens’s sudden death reaches his struggling American publisher, James Osgood sends his trusted clerk, Daniel Sand, to await the arrival of Dickens’s unfinished final manuscript. But Daniel never returns, and when his body is discovered by the docks, Osgood must embark on a quest to find the missing end to the novel and unmask the killer. With Daniel’s sister Rebecca at his side, Osgood races the clock through a dangerous web of opium dens, sadistic thugs, and literary lions to solve a genius’s last mystery and save his own – and Rebecca’s – lives.
Review:
Matthew Pearl blends fact and fiction, and posits a plausible solution
to mystery surrounding Charles Dickens' final, unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood
in The
Last Dickens, the author's
third suspense novel to feature historic literary figures.
Dickens' novel relates the story of Edwin Drood, an honest if sometimes
disturbed young man, who vanishes after provoking the anger of his
devious uncle. Dickens had promised his publishers, Fields and Osgood
in Boston, that the book would have a curious and new ending. The
publishers had been serializing the novel monthly in their trade
magazine, anticipating a total of twelve installments. Six of a twelve
installments had already been printed. The final installments were en
route from London to Boston when Dickens died. A young man from the
publishing company, Daniel Sand, was sent to accept delivery of the
package at the wharf. After he signs for it, but before he can deliver
it, he is killed and the package disappears. James Osgood has a few
mindful questions: Who knew the package of installments was aboard the
vessel? What could the thief gain by stealing the package? No one could
publish the work as it would immediately be discovered. Believing the
package to be irrevocably lost, Osgood decides to go to London to
determine if there might be other copies of the novel in
Dickens’ workroom. Maybe he had told someone about the novel
and how the mystery would end. Before he leaves, though, Osgood is
reminded by his partner Fields that the purpose of his trip is solving
the mystery of the Edwin Drood manuscript, not to create a new mystery
of his own making.
This fictional literary mystery within a factual literary mystery is
absolutely captivating. Daniel's death appears to be accidental, but he
was fleeing from someone with a menacing cane, one with the head of a
horned beast, when he's run down by an omnibus. A lawyer, Sylvanus
Bendall, is nearby and tries to help, but can do nothing before Daniel
dies. Bendall takes possession of Daniel's package and realizes
immediately what it is, and how valuable it potentially is. In the
meantime, Osgood sails from Boston to London accompanied by Daniel's
sister, Rebecca. On board, he's attacked by someone with an identical
cane possessed by the person who stalked Daniel. While in London,
Osgood and Rebecca are taken through underground tunnels, ghastly opium
dens, and anywhere else literary pickpockets and bookaneers frequent,
all in an effort to locate a copy of the missing novel.
Atmospheric and cleverly plotted, The
Last Dickens
is a brilliant novel that proposes an innovative solution to one of the
literary world's most enduring mysteries. Readers will have a hard time
putting down.
Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of The Last Dickens and to Random House for providing a trade paperback edition of the book for this review.
Review Copyright © 2009 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Have you read The Last Dickens? How would you rate it?
Novels by this author …
The
Dante Club
Random House (Hardcover), February 2003
ISBN-10: 0-37550529-6 (0375505296)
ISBN-13: 978-0-37550529-4 (9780375505294)
The
Poe Shadow
Random House (Hardcover), May 2006
ISBN-10: 1-40006103-2 (1400061032)
ISBN-13: 978-1-40006103-7 (9781400061037)
The Last Dickens
Random House (Hardcover), March 2009
ISBN-10: 1-40006656-5 (1400066565)
ISBN-13: 978-1-40006656-8 (9781400066568)
Omnimystery
keywords for The Last Dickens
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Location(s) referenced: New York City, London, England.
