The Disappearance of Edwin Drood

I must confess to never having read the unfinished "Mystery of Edwin Drood", so I really don't know if the characters met in this book, and their actions as described by varous narrators, are true to the original story. All I can say is that this author does a rather good job in weaving together all of the incidents from the Dickens book into his, and then departing from there, giving the case over into the capable hands of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. There's a lot of tooing and froing, and in the end the "mystery" appears to be solved. My only quibble with the book is that the solution appears too easily obtained, and not really adequately explained either by Holmes, or the author. Anyway, it's a short book and useful for passing a few pleasant hours wirh our favorite British consulting detective.

When Sherlock Holmes gets a visit from a strange old man who tells him of a disappearance and possible murder, Holmes agrees to take on the case. However, when he and Dr. Watson journey to the scene of the events, they are surprised to find out that the disappearance happened not one year ago (in 1894), but 25 years ago! But, there is a deep mystery here that only Holmes can get to the bottom of, and nothing will dissuade him from learning just what happened to Edwin Drood! In 1870, Charles Dickens died with his last book unfinished. In the Mystery of Edwin Drood, a young man disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and another young man is accused of murder. In 1991, author and historian Peter Rowland decided that the way to solve this literary mystery by turning literature's greatest sleuth loose on it - Sherlock Holmes. Overall, I found this to be a very interesting story. Mr. Rowland did a good job of catching the feel of the original Sherlock Holmes stories, which makes the book good for any Holmes fan (such as myself). My one complaint here is that the author slipped in a quick paranormal scene, which is quite out of keeping with the Holmes canon. But, that said, I did enjoy this book, and am very glad that I read it. Is it necessary to read Dickens' original story before reading this book? No, it's not necessary, the story is entirely self-contained. So, let me just say that I enjoyed this book, and I highly recommend it to all fans of Sherlock Holmes.