Book Summary

An Oxford don’s death in an opium den is investigated by the literary detective duo—with some help from fellow author Charles Dodgson.

One dank November night, Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins are called to a part of London notorious for its opium dens—where an Oxford history don has been found murdered. Eager to escape the drudgery of a London winter, the two amateur detectives willingly accept Inspector Field’s orders to travel on the new railway line to Oxford, where Collins was once a student, to conduct an undercover investigation.

Once in Oxford, they enlist the help of Collins’s old schoolmate, Charles Dodgson (who will soon be known to the world as Lewis Carroll), a brilliant mind on the verge of becoming the youngest don in Oxford’s history. Together, they encounter a complex conspiracy punctuated by murder, political radicalism, and revenge.

“Vibrant Victorian social history and intriguing biographical details about Dickens” enliven this unique historical mystery with a literary twist from the author of The Detective and Mr. Dickens (Booklist).