First published 2009
Boston publisher James Osgood receives devastating news in 1870. Charles Dickens has died suddenly, leaving his final novel incomplete. Osgood dispatches his trusted clerk Daniel Sand to secure the manuscript that could rescue their failing publishing house, Fields & Osgood. When Daniel turns up dead at the Boston docks and the precious manuscript vanishes, Osgood faces financial ruin and a murder mystery. He crosses the Atlantic with Rebecca Sand, Daniel's determined sister, to track down the missing pages. Their search plunges them into London's literary underworld, where they encounter drug dealers, violent criminals, and members of Dickens's own circle. Each clue brings fresh danger as they discover that powerful forces will kill to possess Dickens's final words. Osgood and Rebecca must decode the mystery within the lost novel before the murderer strikes again. Their quest becomes a desperate race where literature and death intertwine.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, adventure, mystery, crime, 19th-century
Vibes: atmospheric, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: amateur-sleuth, desperate-race, literary-mystery
Setting: Boston, London
Period: 1870
386 pages · Hardcover · Random House