Drood is a fictional account of the last five years of Charles Dickens' life. Little is known about Dickens at that time, so Simmons was able to take excellent creative license.

The story is narrated by author Wilkie Collins ( The Woman in White, The Moonstone) and the story is as much about his life as it is Dickens'. Wilkie and Dickens were long time friends, collaborators and competitors.

The book starts out with a train accident at Staplehurst involving Dickens and in retelling the story to Wilkie, we first hear of the horrific looking man named Drood. Dickens becomes obssessed with finding Drood and drags Wilkie along to late night excursions into Undertown; a city of catacombs and home to those too wretched to live among the poor in above ground London. There are also opium dens and a myriad of crypts.

On the night Wilkie and Dickens go to Undertown, they find a river of sewage that they can not cross. It is here that a boat pulls up to take Dickens, and only Dickens to meet with Drood. Wilkie does not hear of the story until later and has only Dickens word of what transpired. A former inspector, Fields then tries to blackmail Wilkie into sharing all the Dickens will tell him about Drood, as Fields states that Drood has been responsible for hundreds of murders in the last several years. Collins feels like a pawn between the inspector and Dickens and does not know what to believe.

my review:

I thought this book was excellent and addictive and I barely noticed that it was almost 800 pages long. Wilkie is fascinating; he is an opium addict and his jealousy of Dickens grows pathalogical. As he is so unreliable as narrator, the reader is uncertain if parts are true or figments of Wilkie's opium dreams or envious nature. Though I think one can appreciate the book on another level if well-read with Dickens and Collins' novels, I had not yet read anything by Collins and did not feel that I missed anything. However, it does take us through Collins' writing of The Moonstone and spoiled the mystery for me. I still want to read it though.

This was an amazing mix of historical fiction, mystery, and psychological terror. I also really appreciate all of the research that must have gone into this novel and to still make a page turner is quite feat. I also felt that Simmons captured the atmosphere and writing of the period. I can not recommend this enough, it is a must read.

my rating 5/5 ( )

the relationship between collins and dickens is interesting, their lives are interesting but the drood story is so confused and stupid that i couldn't really follow it. ( )

Chilling and haunting story revolving around Charles Dickens and his relationship with author Wilkie Collins. The story is totally original as it tries to explain the elusive last years of Dickens' life as well as the unfinished novel left by Dickens...The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Absolutely fascinating... ( )

Before reading this book, you really need to read:

* The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens
* David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (The semi-autobiographical novel)
* The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
* Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

That should be enough to get you started. The narrator of Drood is Wilkie Collins, the contemporary of Dickens who was his friend and collaborator. Collins also had a problem with laudanum (opium), a plot point that figures prominently in Moonstone and Simmons Drood.

Dicken’s Drood was unfinished, of course, and this novel is an entertaining attempt to explain the unfinished mystery of Dickens’ novel by assuming that it was based on actual people and events in Dickens’ life.

Drood is also massive. The edition that I read weighs in at ~770 pages, a size and heft that would make Dickens’ and Collins’ proud. By the time you read all the prerequisites for Drood you will have finished off almost three thousand pages. But the reading is so much fun, it’s worth it. ( )

I'm not familiar with the real life details of the Dickens book or the players involved, but picked this one up on a whim. The writing style is lovely and engaging, but the book is far too long (there's a lot of passages where nothing happens that advances the story - editing would have been immensely helpful!). Despite that I thought it was a relatively fast read, but I spent a lot of time thinking, "What was the point of that part?" ( )