Not Quite Dead

by John MacLachlan Gray

On a rust-bucket cargo ship bound from Liverpool to the United States in 1848, an Irish stowaway named Devlin steals a suspicious package after witnessing it changing hands between two sea captains. All he finds is a seemingly worthless pile of papers marked “David Copperfield, Final Four Numbers, by Charles Dickens.” Devlin is determined to see if he can somehow turn events to his advantage by paying a call on Dickens’s American publisher.
A year later, a newly admitted patient to a Baltimore hospital, a disreputable writer who goes by the name of Edgar Allan Poe, is clearly raving mad, which makes it easy to dismiss his claims to have information about the murder of an innocent woman. Meanwhile, the eminent English novelist Charles Dickens has embarked on a tour of America, where his views are not received as he would have wished. Dickens’s growing discomfort reaches new heights of intensity when he finds himself sharing disreputable lodgings---and reluctantly collaborating with---none other than Edgar Allan Poe, who has gone into hiding after faking his own death in a desperate attempt to escape the Irish mob. Like White Stone Day, which The Washington Post hailed as “a Dickens of a thriller,” this is a brilliantly imaginative tale in which crime and literature intersect in surprising ways.

Genres: Mystery, Historical Fiction, Historical, Fiction

304 pages, Hardcover

First published November 13, 2007

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book was so boring that i'm tempted to write no review at all. the only things that saved it were the occasionally enchanting turn of phrase, my penchant for historical mystery/thrillers, and the fact that i am exceedingly patient with slow books. even so, i started skimming halfway through, and it was not until the last 50 pages or so it started to pick up, finally landing on a dull, predictable ending.

at least it was free.

[Tracy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Entertaining largely for the reason I had initially picked it up: Edgar Allen Poe cross-examines Charles Dickens on what he really meant by passages in "David Copperfield," while given them his own dark interpretations. That was hugely fun.
The rest...violent. In parts, interesting from an American history bent. Best if you're a buff of any of the above and can deal with a bit of violence to get there.

[jen8998 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hopelessly muddled story. This one starts out well but then I rapidly lost the story thread as the author added another narrator midway through the book.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the what-if scenerio, but thought Dickens was underutilized and the gangs of new york added more potboiler drama then necessary.

[Jonathan Van Dyck · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting concept that starts great but gets pretty convoluted about halfway through.

[Bridget · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't usually write reviews on the books I add to Goodreads, but maybe I'll start with this one.

Not Quite Dead was just so different from what I expected. I was so excited to read it - Charles Dickens meets Edgar Allan Poe (literally!). The book flap mentions a mystery about the last four chapters of Dickens' "David Copperfield," but what happens to these chapters, I couldn't tell you. I feel that I was misled into thinking the book had more to do with this mystery than it actually did. Instead, I got a convoluted narrative about random political history (?) of Philadelphia in the mid-1800s.

Also, the narrators kept switching, which I'm usually okay with, but it just did not work for me in this one. When I finished, I felt like I "didn't get it."

That said, I did want to keep reading it, and I finished it fairly quickly. Perhaps because I kept waiting for the book I had originally expected to pop up.

[Whitney · Rating 2 out of 5]

A peculiar book... What if Edgar Allen Poe had faked his own death? He got assistance from a longtime acquaintance who just happens to be a physician. (Near the end of the novel, the physician attempts to kill Poe, after which Poe remarks in confusion, "You tried to kill me"- quite Poe-like, yes? No.) Meanwhile a fractious and violent Irish group in Philadelphia kidnaps Charles Dickens... My favorite character is the chief Inspector of Philadelphia who often quotes sayings by his mother. This is a book for literary MEN - manly-type men. And the title made me think of the Monty Python "Bring out Yer Dead" sketch in their Holy Grail movie, if anyone is interested in that sort of thing.

[Gregg · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent mystery yarn where Charles Dickens is kidnapped by Irish nationalists for ransom, and then stuck in the same room with Edgar Allan Poe to hash out the last four chapters of David Copperfield. Guess I just gave away the ending there. Sorry. But watching those authors duke it out over what Poe reads as incestuous tendencies between various characters, much to Dickens' exasperation, made the entire book for me.

[Suzanne Vincent · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't actually finish it. I just don't have the time to keep reading a book that doesn't hold my interest.

The premise of the book was extremely interesting, but the pace was somewhat languorous and wandered for two long between two seemingly unrelated story lines without ever (up to the point where I stopped reading) having any threads that gave the reader the clue that they might become related sometime soon.

[michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gray can definitely turn a phrase. And all the pieces were there for a great historical thriller. But, in the end, the story lacked cohesiveness and the plot lines tended to compete with one another. While engaging, this book never turned into a real page turner. So, I'm on the fence about recommending it. Let's put it this way, I'll give Gray another try because I think he is a talented writer. Maybe he can be a great storyteller as well.

[Barbara Roden · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of several books recently to feature Edgar Allan Poe as a character; I felt there were a few too many plot strands fighting for supremacy, but Gray does his customarily excellent job of evoking period feel, and the scenes between Poe and Charles Dickens were superb and surprisingly humorous.

[Evalyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a difficult time getting into this one although the idea of a mystery that included two real life writers (Poe & Dickens) intrigued me. It prompted me to get a copy of Poe's complete works, as well as read up on his life, so that's a good thing.

[Tiffany Rice · Rating 1 out of 5]

Quite possibly the worst book I have ever read. I had to force myself to finish it. It was so boring with very small segments where I thought maybe it was finally getting good. Didn't happen. I'm not a very harsh book critic, and enjoy many different books, but this was horrible.

[SanjeeB]

I applaud anyone who was able to read past the first two pages of this book! I did not make it, sadly. The title and cover were intriguing, but that was all. The writing is convoluted and pretentious and life is too short for books where one becomes confused on page 2.

[Riversue · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable, fast read with some very interesting characters - Charles Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe written by a Vancouver writer. He writes beautiful gothic Victorian prose which so precisely captures the historical period.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A modest entertainment, set in Philadelphia in the 1840's, wherein Edgar Alan Poe and Charles Dickens are kidnapped by an Irish Gang - as if the protagonist didn't already have problems. ;-)

[Patricia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Normally I like a nice historical fiction about real characters you think wouldn't meet. However, I did not like this, and gave up on it.

[4cats · Rating 3 out of 5]

good historical thriller, featuring Edgar Allen Poe and Dickens.

[Caroline Fitzgerald]

I abandoned Not Quite Dead because its story line was very hard to follow and I never quit knew what was going on in this book.