Description

DROOD.

By Dan Simmons.

"A dazzling journey through a crooked, gaslit labyrinth and a tenebrous portraiture of the tortured minotaurs that dwell within. Genius is the true mystery, and at its edge--the abyss." Guillermo del Toro, Director of Pans Labyrinth, The Orphanage.

OVERVIEW: On June 9, 1865, while traveling by train to London with his secret mistress, 53-year-old Charles Dickens--at the height of his powers and popularity, the most famous and successful novelist in the world and perhaps in the history of the world--hurtled into a disaster that changed his life forever.

Did Dickens begin living a dark double life after the accident? Were his nightly forays into the worst slums of London and his deepening obsession with corpses, crypts, murder, opium dens, the use of lime pits to dissolve bodies, and a hidden subterraneanLondon mere research . . . or something more terrifying?

Just as he did in The Terror, Dan Simmons draws impeccably from history to create a gloriously engaging and terrifying narrative. Based on the historical details of Charles Dickenss life and narrated by Wilkie Collins (Dickenss friend, frequent collaborator, and Salieri-style secret rival), DROOD explores the still-unsolved mysteries of the famous authors last years and may provide the key to Dickenss final, unfinished work: The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Chilling, haunting, and utterly original, DROOD is Dan Simmons at his powerful best.

Hardcover, Little Brown and Co., 2009.