Aside from A Christmas Carol (which I try to read every year at Christmas) and A Tale of Two Cities (which I’ve read twice), this is the only other “full” Dickens book I ever read (excluding other short stories).
For those who don’t know, The Mystery of Edwin Drood holds a unique place in literature. I believe it’s the only whodunnit that doesn’t have a ‘whodunnit’ reveal, because Dickens had a stroke in the middle of writing it. Literally in the middle – twelve parts were planned, six had been published. He left no notes on the last six installments and just died in the middle, and the general public has been trying to solve the mystery of Drood’s disappearance for 152 years. It was pretty selfish of him to die in the middle of the story but that’s how it goes sometimes 😉
Anyway, the novel follows the teenage orphan Edwin Drood (imagine!) as he goes about his business, which is to say, he hangs out with his betrothed, he visits his uncle, he makes plans for his future (going to Egypt to work as an engineer where his father had been a partner). Unfortunately for Edwin, he and his fiancé like each other but fight a lot, his uncle is an opium addict who (in addition to hanging out in opium dens, also likes to hang out in crypts) may wish to cause him harm, and his future is left in question when he disappears under mysterious circumstances.
There are other supporting characters and other mysteries as well – why was Princess Puffer following and cursing John Jasper (Drood’s uncle)? How do the Landlesses fit in? Who is Dick Datchery?
As I said, Dickens’ death leaves the work unfinished, with subsequent generations of readers trying to crack the mystery of Edwin Drood. Was Drood murdered by his uncle? Or was he going to triumphantly return, wealthy and successful from Egypt?
While there are no known notes or clues to how Dickens was going officially end the story, certain clues do point in the direction of John Jasper murdering his nephew. First, there are the out of story clues:
1. Dickens wrote a letter to his friend/biographer John Forster outlining the plot (although not the murder) and describing the story as the murder of a nephew by his uncle.
2. The story’s original illustrator was told to include a certain scarf in one of his illustrations because Jasper was to strangle Drood with it.
3. Dickens’ son was told unequivocally by his father that Jasper was the murderer.
Even before reading up on the unfinished story, the text also provides a lot of clues, which I won’t spoil here, because the mystery is still fun, even after a century and a half.
As always, Dickens character names are some of the most memorable you’ll ever come across.
I actually loved this story, even though it was unfinished, and no Dickens fan should skip it.
Category Archives: mystery
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
The Art of the English Murder
Lucy Worsley’s The Art of the English Murder is a non-fiction book that follows the history of British crime as entertainment – from true stories, such as that of the Ratcliff Highway Murders and the infamous Jack the Ripper, to fictional murderers and their detectives, from Sherlock Holmes to Hercule Poirot and beyond.
The British public’s fascination with real crime led to the creation of the crime fiction genre, inspiring novels, plays, short stories, art, films, and various other mediums. Worsley’s engaging, witty text takes us through from the early nineteenth century through to the mid-late twentieth.
It’s interesting, as Worsley points out, that after a long hard day at work, toiling in the mines, or the fields, or behind a desk, a person comes home and flips on the television or opens a book and participates as an audience member in a good murder. They turn to grisly death for relaxation, and if you think about it, it’s quite bizarre.
Anyway, I really enjoyed this book. It was a quick, interesting look at one of the main forms of entertainment for the last hundred and fifty or so years. I especially like the second half of the book, focused on the detectives of these stories.
The one thing about the book I found a little disruptive was the tendency of Worsley to jump around, however, I learned later that this book actually accompanies a television series, which explains a lot of this, as the best way to tell a story on TV and in a book aren’t always the same. Either way, I recommend this little piece of history academia, and highly recommend it, especially if you enjoy murder mysteries, the way I do.
Lethal White
Lethal White is the fourth Cormoran Strike novel. As usual, I enjoyed it.
As usual, the main narrative of the novel is a murder investigation, this one triggered by a young man with a mental illness who believes he may have witnessed a child’s murder and burial in the woods near his home some years before the start of the novel.
The case leads to the Minister of Culture, Jasper Chiswell, and the investigation into his son Freddie’s death in Afghanistan, as well as the rest of his family and some left wing environmental activists.
This book also features art, which I am on and off randomly obsessed with.
I enjoyed Lethal White. I thought the motive was excellent and the story was well written.
My favorite part of the series continues to be Robin. She’s smart, determined, quite a bit ballsy, and I admire her struggle with PTSD because 1) it’s hard and 2) she does a lot of things I feel like I would do if I had PTSD. But anyway, I like everything about her except her sticking by her unsupportive boyfriend/fiancé/husband even though he’s a selfish cow. BUT THAT WAS FINALLY REMEDIED IN THIS BOOK. SHE FINALLY DUMPS HIM.
This is clearly setting up Robin and Strike as…endgame? Not 100% sure about that and not 100% certain how I feel about it, but honestly it doesn’t matter because OMG SHE DUMPED MATTHEW AND THANK GOD BECAUSE HE WAS AWFUL.
I don’t want to spoil too much of the case. I enjoy the cases in these stories because I find them interesting and difficult to work out (I don’t enjoy stories where I work out the end too much, makes me feel like I wasted my time). So I’ll cut this off here. BUT ROBIN DUMPED MATTHEW. YAY.
Skulduggery Pleasant
So I finally did a YA novel that I knew was a YA novel going in.
I really enjoyed Derek Landy’s Skulduggery Pleasant.
Skulduggery reminded me of my best friend, which may have been why I enjoyed it so much.
The story begins with Stephanie Edgely, a twelve year old who inherits the bulk of her best-selling novelist uncle’s estate, in spite of her living parents and aunt and uncle. Mr. Skulduggery Pleasant, also at the funeral and will reading but unknown to the family, is left a piece of advice (which nobody is very jealous of, as it sounds rather useless).
Stephanie spends time in her new property and is attacked there by a man demanding a key. She is rescued by Skulduggery Pleasant who throws a fireball he generated with a finger snap at the man. Skullduggery’s disguise is knocked askew in the fray, and he is revealed to be nothing but a skeleton held together by magic.
Stephanie goes on to figure out that her uncle was murdered and was very involved in sorcery and was quite the magician. As it turns out, he had discovered some kind of magic weapon that the first sorcerers used against their gods. (As everyone knows, it is *never* a good idea to fuck with gods). Skulduggery and Stephanie go on to investigate, save the day, etc…
Anyway, as this goes on, Skulduggery and Stephanie also become friends, with Skulduggery encouraging Stephanie to come up with a new magic name, that she needs if she plans to continue in the magical world. She, of course, does.
Again, I really, really enjoyed this book, even though it was YA. Stephanie was likeable enough, and Skulduggery’s deadpan humor and dry wit amused me to no end. There are more books in this series. I’ll try to get to them, and have been meaning to for awhile. I just haven’t yet.Â
I may give the book to my cousin’s kid for her next birthday. I’m going to try to corrupt her into fantasy but she’s into mysteries right now. Perhaps this magical mystery will be the first step on the path…
Meddling Kids
Edgar Cantero’s Meddling Kids was one of my favorite books in 2018. In fact, it might be one of my favorite books ever.
In a Scooby Gang meets Lovecraft adventure of horror and comedy, four former child detectives and a descendant of their faithful weimaraner – an equally faithful weimaraner – take another look at their last case which, due to the bizarre nature of the case, one of them still cannot believe was simply a guy in a mask.
Andy, who convinces the others to reinvestigate, pinpoints that case as the trigger that destroyed their lives, haunted by the memories of their nights out in the forest. Andy is a tomboy, now butch lesbian, with a criminal record wanted in several states. Kerry, child genius and would be biologist – is plagued by nightmares, unable to finish college, and descending into alcoholism. Nate (the nerd) checks himself into and out of mental institutions, and Peter (the Golden Boy) becomes a successful Hollywood actor until he takes his own life not long after Kerry starts college. Peter now manifests as a hallucination that only Nate can see and hear.
As a devoted Scooby Doo fan, there was no chance that I wasn’t going to read this book. As a less devoted Lovecraft fan, there was no chance that I wasn’t going to read this book. And as a not devoted but totally remembers reading the stories Nancy Drew fan, there was no chance that I wasn’t going to read this book.
If you’re looking for a logical detective story, you’re not going to find it here. What you will find is a tale of broken people who reunite to unbreak themselves, just a little bit. In spite of the fact that you’re basically dealing with three broken people, a telepathic dog, and broken hallucinated person, this book is fun and funny. I laughed out loud quite a few times.
I don’t think this book is for everyone. This book draws heavily on those child detective stories we all read as kids, as well as Scooby Doo, and it draws a lot from the Cthulhu mythos. If you don’t like any of those things, it’s probably not a book for you, as those things don’t seem to be for everyone. Cthulhu especially doesn’t seem to appeal to a lot of people, and a lot of younger people don’t seem to be all that familiar with it. It just feels like a lot of people aren’t going to get the book because they’re not going to be familiar with its brilliant campiness and nostalgia.
Put another way: if you only like watching Scooby Doo, you probably won’t like this book. People never fail to amaze me in that they went into a book expecting to read a novel length version of Scooby Doo, this isn’t what it was, and they hated it. DUH, you idiots, it was never supposed to be a novelized version of Scooby Doo.
One of the biggest complaints I’ve seen leveled at the book is that the writing was all over the place. It was, but I took at least some of that to be part of the point. And anybody who has read The Supernatural Enhancements knows Edgar Cantero does weird stuff like that. I didn’t love The Supernatural Enhancements because the story was meh and I expected more. I felt like I got exactly what I expected here.
I saw one or two people complaining the story was transphobic but I missed that. I’m always a bit hesitant to label people “phobes” anyway and overall I’m usually an insensitive cow, but I feel like transphobic here was a leap. I don’t assume trans people are evil because of this book. I never did anyway, but here we are.
Anyway, I recommend this book highly, even though I know a lot of people aren’t going to like it, and honestly…I don’t care. It was good, nostalgic, campy fun and totally in line with what I expected from Cantero and from a book inspired by a cartoon, a horror author, and some detective books. It’s not a novelization of Scooby Doo.
Oh, and it is most definitely not a kids book.
2018: The Year of Stephen King (Part II)
Because Stephen King’s Dark Tower audiobooks are popular at the library, I couldn’t just listen to them all in a row. I had to wait in between and listened to more of his books in the meantime. The other Stephen King books I completed last year were:
Doctor Sleep
Gwendy’s Button Box (co-written with Richard Chizmar)
Mr. Mercedes
Finders Keepers
End of Watch
Salem’s Lot
Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, and End of Watch were a series of detective novels featuring retired detective Bill Hodges and his nemesis Brady Hartsfield. I don’t know if I loved the supernatural-ish twist the series took, but overall I really enjoyed it, especially because Hodges’s side kick characters, Jerome Robinson and Holly Gibney.
Holly might be the best female character King has written. She is neurotic, socially inept, and has a ton of anxieties, but she is brilliant, loyal, funny, and infinitely capable. I loved loved loved her, and she appears in The Outsider (which I haven’t read yet), and is apparently getting her own book next year. I am so excited.
Gwendy’s Button Box was a novella set in Castle Rock, Maine, where 12 year old Gwendy meets a stranger in dark clothes who invites her to “palaver” (hello, reference to The Dark Tower series) and gives her a box with – you guessed it! – buttons. This was a novella, mostly about personal choices. It was ok. I didn’t love it as much as other books by King this year.
Doctor Sleep was a sequel to The Shining, which follows once cute 5 year old Danny Torrence into his alcoholic adulthood. Alcoholic Dan is way less adorable but he does pull it together to help Abra, a girl with “the shine,” who is being hunted by the cult True Knot. I liked Doctor Sleep, but for some reason felt it was missing something. Can’t quite figure out what it was.
Salem’s Lot is the story of a man named Ben Mears, who returns to his childhood town to discover it’s being taken over by vampires. I watched the TNT miniseries starring Rob Lowe in 2004 but never got around to reading the book. This was one of the books I listened to last summer at the gym (I spent A LOT of time at the gym last summer). I really liked this one. It’s one of King’s earliest books and easily one of his most famous and beloved. I liked a lot of the vampire lore that King built on (again, this was a Dracula year) and I liked the ending immensely. I decided to listen to the whole story because Father Callahan appeared in the The Dark Tower novels.
So that was my year with Stephen King. I plan to continue with his stuff. King can suck me into just about any story within a few pages, which is a talent beyond measure. How many books do I start and then drop because they just aren’t interesting? Quite a few, but none of Stephen King’s books, that’s for sure.
And Then There Were None
Another revisit from my college days! And Then There Were None is my favorite Agatha Christie mystery that I’ve read so far.
As I’ve mentioned before, I have a thing about settings that greatly influence the circumstances of plot. Much like other novels and forms of entertainment I’ve written about here, like The Haunting of Hill House, The Shining, and Evil Under the Sun (also by Agatha Christie), setting plays a crucial role in how the plot unfolds.
The ten main characters are on an island, having been offered jobs or holidays or various other enticements to get them out to the island. One by one, they start ending up murdered. The murderer must be on the island.
The story goes on from there.
I still love how this book unfolds. There’s a crushing sense of inevitability and claustrophobia. I still love the motivation for the murders that we do, eventually, get from the story. It’s still the first mystery I recommend if someone asks me where to start with mysteries.
As you may or may not be aware, the original title of And Then There Were None was “Ten Little N*ggers” or “Ten Little Indians.” The language, which was not as offensive in England when the book was published, was changed for obvious reasons in the United States.
Anyway, there’s a real minstrel song/poem that goes with each “title.” The poem has changed through the years too, at least the one printed in the book. This is the current version, called “Ten Little Soldier Boys.”
Ten little Soldier Boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were nine.
Nine little Soldier Boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself and then there were eight.
Eight little Soldier Boys travelling in Devon;
One said he’d stay there and then there were seven.
Seven little Soldier Boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.
Six little Soldier Boys playing with a hive;
A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.
Five little Soldier Boys going through a door;
One stubbed his toe and then there were four.
Four little Soldier Boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.
Three little Soldier Boys walking in the zoo;
A big bear hugged one and then there were two.
Two little Soldier Boys sitting in the sun;
One got frizzled up and then there was one.
One little Soldier Boy left all alone;
He went and hanged himself, and then there were none.
…This is the mystery, guys. If you’re going to read just one in your whole life, this is it.
The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye
The latest book in the Lisbeth Salander series is the second by David Lagercrantz and was not my favorite. My favorite remains the first story, but I’m starting to worry that we’re going to see a sharp drop in quality the farther out we get from Stieg Larsson’s death.
We do learn some interesting information about Lisbeth’s past, and we do watch her (from prison for her activities in the previous book) and Mikael Blomkvist solve a mystery and a crime.
There are basically two stories going on. One is about Lisbeth and the system she was brought up in after her abuse. This involves a complex social project called “The Registry” which sounded super sketchy and had something to do with separating gifted twins. Lisbeth and Blomkvist figure out that a wealthy businessman Leo Manneheimer is not actually Leo Manheimmer and the story that entails.
The other story is about a prisoner Lisbeth is trying to protect from another violent prisoner. Lisbeth is convinced the prisoner she is protecting doesn’t belong in prison, and there’s a mystery being solved there as well.
It was entertaining enough. It just wasn’t as good the previous installments.
The pacing was off, compared to previous novels, and Salander wasn’t actually in a lot of the book. Plus she was in prison a lot of the time. Langercrantz spent a lot of time on characters he created for the book, which I guess is ok, but not really why I read them.
I hope the next installment is better.
Evil Under the Sun
My annual attempt at reading “scary” stories in October actually worked out in 2017.
I actually read this book, and it was exciting because it was the first book I took out from the library in the town where I now live, so it was a big moment for me.
Anyway, Evil Under the Sun was one of Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries, one of the lesser known ones that doesn’t get much attention. This one, unlike a couple of the other lesser known ones I’ve read, was quite enjoyable.
Hercule Poirot is on holiday at a secluded beach hotel in Devon when a beautiful, flirtatious red-headed actress named Arlena is murdered. Poirot and the police go through the full investigation and questioning of witnesses and about their alibis.
In this particular case, Arlena was a well known flirt who had many affairs after her first husband died under suspicious circumstances and she remarried an honorable military man, who was in love with someone else who happened to be at the hotel. He also had a daughter who hated her step mother.
Other suspects include a young man that Arlena appeared to be having an affair with, the young man’s wife, and several other vacation goers with means and motive.
As usual, Poirot’s reasoning was flawless, and as usual, there is a piece of information the reader isn’t privy to until Poirot reveals it – in this case, a similar murder – which means the reader can’t solve the mystery but doesn’t render it unenjoyable.
I might have liked this book a lot because, as I’ve mentioned before, I have an affinity for mysteries and stories where the isolated settings dictate a lot of what is possible for the characters. This book took place at a remote beach resort, and so there were a very specific set of suspects that must have committed the crime in a very specific set of circumstance.
This was an entirely satisfying mystery and a good one for Halloween.
words in scarlet ink 