"'What . . . do . . . I . . . want? Dickens!'" p. 54
And the Dickens plot thickens (sorry). We've been finding out just how many people have a stake in the fate of Edwin Drood and how high the stakes are. Already jobs have been threatened by the author's death; the American firm of Fields, Osgood and Company owes practically all its success to him. This state of affairs is especially hard on Rebecca Sand, a divorced bookkeeper at the firm and thus in a precarious position for a young woman in 1870. Now the theft of the last installment threatens the firm's rights to publish it. They could send for a duplicate, but if another publisher puts out the stolen edition first, they're pretty much toast -- unless they could find out how Dickens intended to end the story, and publish their own edition that exclusively reveals the solution to the mystery.
So the need to find out everything they can about Dickens's plans for the book sends Rebecca and her boss James Osgood on an ocean voyage to England, during which Osgood is pursued by both homicidal villains and giggling girls, and Rebecca has a hard time deciding which she dislikes more.
We also revisit India and find out that the Dickens mentioned in chapter 1 was not Charles, but his son Francis, who's dealing with some major daddy issues. And the improbable thread that keeps reappearing, tying all these people together, is opium. It may or may not have been responsible for Rebecca's brother's death; Francis's job revolves around it; and of course it plays a prominent role in Edwin Drood.
Herman the turbaned would-be assassin is satisfyingly creepy -- almost Blandois-like as he sits in his prison cell singing nursery rhymes and killing rats. ("Then there was a sound, like a rat squealing" made my blood run cold.) Not all the minor characters are as well drawn, but Rebecca and Osgood are appealing and sympathetic. The narrative is exciting when it really gets going, though at this point it seems to be moving in fits and starts. Anything set in India spurs it to such a gallop that some of the events blur as they rush by, while at other parts the plot and language grow slow and formal. Hopefully things will smooth out a bit as we get further along. . .
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