Not Quite Dead
Not Quite Dead by John MacLachlan Gray, published by St. Martin’s Press on November 13, 2007, is a historical fiction novel that intertwines mystery and detective elements. Set in 1848, the story follows an Irish stowaway named Devlin aboard a cargo ship from Liverpool to the United States, who steals a package that leads him to the works of Charles Dickens. As he seeks to leverage this discovery, the narrative unfolds with the introduction of Edgar Allan Poe, a disreputable writer in a Baltimore hospital, who claims to possess vital information about a murder.
Readers will find a richly woven tale where crime and literature collide, featuring notable figures like Dickens and Poe. The plot explores themes of deception and survival as Dickens navigates his American tour amid growing discomfort, while Poe, hiding from the Irish mob, grapples with his own madness. This first edition spans 304 pages and is presented in English, offering a unique blend of historical context and thrilling narrative that invites exploration of both the characters’ fates and the literary world of the time.
Official synopsis Publisher
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.
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