IMMORTALISED TO DEATH

Squire imagines the murder of Charles Dickens in this historical novel.

The novel opens with Charles Dickens suffering a stroke while in the middle of writing The Mystery of Edwin Drood and dying in Kent, England. That’s all largely accepted as truth, but in this inventive and intriguing piece of historical fiction, the great British author is murdered, the victim of strychnine poisoning. When Dickens’ notes for Drood are stolen, retired bookkeeper and distant Dickens relative Dunston Burnett becomes convinced the two events are related. He begins an investigation that encompasses Dickens’ literary rivals, family, and others. During this investigation, running parallel to Scotland Yard Chief of Detectives Archibald Line’s inquiries, family secrets are uncovered, more murders are committed, and Burnett uses his relative’s unfinished Drood to lead him to pertinent information. All the while, Dickens’ beloved sister-in-law, Georgina Hogarth, tries to protect his reputation from potential tawdriness as the world mourns his loss. A sweet secondary story, which eventually intertwines with the primary plot, depicts Georgina’s stableboy, Isaac, and parlor maid, Dulcet, falling in love. At the end of the novel, Burnett and Line are allies, so the reader may expect more exploits from the duo (“He didn’t know what the future held in store for him. Perhaps the tranquillity and solitude of a contented bachelorhood; perhaps another adventure in tandem with the iconic Archibald Line”). The novel is a delightful piece of reimagined history set against a backdrop of locations and characters that would make Dickens proud. It’s hard to tell where the history ends and the fiction begins in this twisty narrative (though the author includes a handy fact vs. fiction guide at the end of the book). References to many of Dickens’ works—including Oliver Twist, Bleak House, David Copperfield, and A Christmas Carol—and real figures from his life, such as Hogarth, his ex-wife, Catherine, and his girlfriend Ellen Ternan, are interspersed with fictional characters and storylines. All of it combines in an intriguing mystery, one worthy of one of the greatest writers in literary history.

An engaging and entertaining alternate take on a mammoth literary figure’s fate.