Saturday, August 15, 2009

Favorite Things



Lady Audley's Secret follows Robert Audley through his detective-like work in trying to uncover what happened to his friend George Talboys and who his uncle's wife, Lucy Audley, really is. During his search, Robert has to deal with lies, deceit, and even an attempt to kill him.



The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a "whodunnit" novel by Charles Dickens, his last novel left unfinished at his death in 1870. The story centers on the disappearance of Edwin Droods. John Jasper, Drood's uncle, leads a double life as cathedral choirmaster and opium addict. Secretly, Jasper regularly travels to London opium den to satisfy his craving. Edwin Drood is engaged to Rosa Bud as a child, but the couple don't have special affection for each other, simply, not in love, so their engagement is dissolved. Jasper holds a passion for Rosa. The story thickens as Edwin Drood disappears on a Christmas Eve after a raging thunderstorm. Because of the author's death and the novel left uncompleted, there have been speculations as to what might have happened, or how Dickens might have wanted the story to end. Most commentators presume the obvious, that Jasper murdered Drood. Some events are not clear, for example, the orphaned twins who come to live with Mr Crisparkle in Cloisterham or about Dick Datchery, the disguised detective who arrives to investigate Drood's disappearance.



In a surreal turn-of-the-century London, Gabriel Syme, a poet, is recruited to a secret anti-anarchist taskforce at Scotland Yard. Lucian Gregory, an anarchist poet, is the only poet in Saffron Park, until he loses his temper in an argument over the purpose of poetry with Gabriel Syme, who takes the opposite view. After some time, the frustrated Gregory finds Syme and leads him to a local anarchist meeting-place to prove that he is a true anarchist. Instead of the anarchist Gregory getting elected, the officer Syme uses his wits and is elected as the local representative to the worldwide Central Council of Anarchists. The Council consists of seven men, each using the name of a day of the week as a code name; Syme is given the name of Thursday. In his efforts to thwart the council's intentions, however, he discovers that five of the other six members are also undercover detectives; each was just as mysteriously employed and assigned to defeat the Council of Days. They all soon find out that they are fighting each other and not real anarchists; such was the mastermind plan of the genius Sunday. In a dizzying and surreal conclusion, the six champions of order and former anarchist ring-leaders chase down the disturbing and whimsical Sunday, the man who calls himself "The Peace of God".

4 comments:

~Wendy~ said...

These sound great! More books for my list! I am loving The Good House right now!

Vampire Sighs said...

Thursday is definitely a matter of taste - and as for Drood- Dan Simmons (SF author extraordinair) recently published a novel that revisits the whole thing with a vengeance apparently.

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