Death by Dickens

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Summary: Death by Dickens
Review: Anne Perry follows up her 2002 Shakespearean anthology, Much Ado About Murder, with Death by Dickens, which contains 11 mostly so-so tales inspired by the fiction of Charles Dickens. Well-known contributors include Carole Nelson Douglas, Peter Tremayne and Perry herself, but the book's standout is Martin Edwards's "The House of the Red Candle," an atmospheric tale in which Dickens and Wilkie Collins probe an impossible locked-room murder in a brothel.

Rating:
Summary: This Book Met Its Great Expectations
Review: Death by Dickens is a worthy companion to Anne Perry's previous anthology Much Ado About Murder. In this case the stories are based on the novels of Charles Dickens. Two of the stories are based on A Christmas Carol, including my favorite, A Stake of Holly, in which a dying Scrooge, 19 years after the events of the novel, charges Tim Cratchitt to discover the earthly identities of the three Ghosts. As he investigates, he uncovers a diabolical murder. Two are based on A Tale of Two Cities. In Death in Dover the crime is solved by a well-known character from another novel. Sidney Carton is the detective in Anne Perry's story A Tale of One City, in which Marat & Robespierre play roles. There are two Great Expectations Tales, two from the Pickwick Papers, one modern-day story revolving around an Oliver Twist manuscript, and two in which Dickens himself is the detective, once with his friend and fellow author Wilkie Collins and the other with his son-in-law (and Wilkie's brother) Charles Collins. You don't have to know Dickens to enjoy these stories, which are to be read, re-read, and savored.