The Last Dickens

January 12, 2009
Bestseller Pearl (The Poe Shadow
) delivers a period thriller that has the misfortune to fall short of the high standard set by Dan Simmons's Drood
(Reviews, Nov. 24), which also centers on Charles Dickens's final, unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood
. After the author dies in 1870, a series of suspicious deaths leads Dickens's U.S. publisher, James Osgood, to suspect they may be connected with the solution to the novel's puzzle. Accompanied by attractive bookkeeper Rebecca Sand, the sister of one of the victims, Osgood travels from Boston to England to seek clues to Drood
's missing conclusion. The action shifts to India, where Charles's son Francis is a superintendent of the Bengal Mounted Police, and back in time, to the novelist's last American tour in 1867. Some awkward prose distracts (“There were several other grim faces at dinner that, like some imperceptible force, spread a dark cloud over the levity”), while the ending may strike some readers as a cop-out.

February 1, 2009
A rousing yarn of opium, book pirating, murder most foul, man-on-man biting and other shenanigans—and that's just for starters.

Charles Dickens is dead, and, inexplicably, people are beginning to die because of that fact—not because they've got no reason to live absent new tales from a beloved author, but because said author's last work-in-progress contains evidence of real-life mayhem that its perpetrators, it would seem, do not wish to see publicized. So runs the premise that Pearl (The Poe Shadow, 2006, etc.), who specializes in literary mysteries, offers. The story unfolds on the docks of Boston, to which an office boy has run to retrieve the next installment of Dickens's Mystery of Edwin Drood, fresh off the boat from London. Said boy expires, unpleasantly, while a stranger of most peculiar manner is seen skulking in the vicinity, conspicuous by his"decidedly English accent" and"brown-parchment complexion," suggestive of India and imperial milieus beyond. Dickens's American publisher—better put, the only publisher in America who is paying the author royalties rather than stealing his work—sets out to solve the crime and retrieve the manuscript, with the clerk's resourceful sister on hand to help on a journey across oceans and continents. Meanwhile, our stranger is up to more nasty business, slashing throats, sawing bones and giving people the willies. It's clear that Pearl is having a fine time of it all, firing off a few inside jokes at the publishing business along the way: No matter that Dickens is dead with only six chapters done, says his London editor a trifle ungrammatically, for"Every reader who picks up the book, finding it unfinished, can spend their time guessing what the ending should be. And they'll tell their friends to buy a copy and do the same, so it can be argued."

A pleasing whodunit that resolves nicely, bookending Dan Simmons's novel Drood (2009) as an imaginative exercise in what might be called alternative literary history.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

March 15, 2009
Pearl's third historical novel (after "The Dante Club" and "The Poe Shadow") explores the circumstances surrounding Charles Dickens's unfinished last work, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood". Boston publisher James Osgood eagerly awaits the final installments of "Drood" after hearing of Dickens's sudden death. Unfortunately, Osgood's trusted messenger, Daniel, is killed before he can deliver the manuscript to the publishing house, and the manuscript disappears. Could Osgood's publishing rivals have stolen it, or is there an even deeper mystery going on? Accompanied by Daniel's sister, Osgood travels to England to search for clues about how Dickens planned on finishing "Drood", unaware his enemies are close at hand. Pearl enriches his story through extended flashbacks, the inclusion of actual historical figures, including Osgood himself, and an in-depth knowledge of Dickens's career and literary works. Strongly recommended for all public libraries. [For some very different literary takes on Charles Dickens, see Richard Flanagan's "Wanting", reviewed on p. 94, and Dan Simmons's "Drood", reviewed in "LJ" 1/09.Ed.]Laurel Bliss, San Diego State Univ. Lib., CA

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2009
Pearls latest literary historical mystery aligns perfectly with his two previous works, the widely applauded Dante Club (2002) and the equally esteemed Poe Shadow (2006);like its predecessors, the novel is a brilliant, exciting thriller exactingly set in past times andinvolving mysterious aspects ofthe lives of famous writers. This compelling yarn opens with ayes, mysteriousscene set in 1870 India, in the wilds, when a mounted policeman invokes the name of Dickenswhile chasing a robber. Zoom offto Boston on the same day, when a clerk at a publishing house, who was sent to take into his own hands, for his boss, the advance sheets of the next installment of the recently deceased Charles Dickens novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood, is run down by an omnibus on his way back to the office, and the pagesgo missing. This situation necessitates the publishers going to England to attempt to ascertain how Dickens intended to end his novel. Just what do the seemingly disparate parts of the story have to do with one another? What the publisher becomes embroiled in, in London, is far more complicated than simply manuscript detection. A whole world of life-and-death nefariousness awaits both him and the reader, who will be well rewarded.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)