The Mystery of Edwin Drood, is the last book written by the prolific and well loved author, Charles Dickens. Unfortunately, he died before he had finished it. I'd heard great things about it nonetheless and was ready to give it a go. Edwin Drood is a young man who lives in the Cathedral City of Cloisterham, under the guidance of his Uncle, John Jasper. He seems destined to marry the twittering Rosa until the Landless siblings come on the scene. They bring a certain mystery and spice to the locale. Edwin and Rosa come to the conclusion that whilst they are the very best of friends, they shouldn't marry. Happy with their decision, they head off to tell people. Soon after, on Christmas Eve, Edwin disappears. When some of his belongings turn up, the assumption is that he has been murdered. Suspicion falls on Neville Landless, but he is cleared of any wrongdoing. So far, so good. However, what then followed in the book left me completely cold and a tad bewildered. John Jasper declares his love for Rosa, and she flees Cloisterham. There is much toing and froing to London and back, and we find out that Jasper is an opium addict. When his supplier follows him back to Cloisterham, we can only assume that she is up to no good ... but at this point, the book finishes. It could have been the narration of the audio edition that I read, but I was much confused by who was who and what they were doing and whether they were really relevant to the story, or just an aside. The story didn't flow for me and I was left feeling confused, frustrated and disappointed. I wasn't even that bothered that it was left "unfinished", because by the time it did, I couldn't care less! I have enjoyed previous works by Mr Dickens and I will not be put off by this unsatisfying work.
My STAR rating: THREE.
Length: 400 print pages.
Price I paid: £3.86.
Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; ebook.
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