35. "Drood" by Dan Simmons

After spending several days with the lengthy Drood by Dan Simmons, I'm still not sure what to say about it. Narrated by William Wilkie Collins, the book follows the adventures and misadventures of his "frenemy" (to use an anachronistic but fitting term), the aging Charles Dickens. After he nearly dies in a railway crash, Dickens tells Collins about his encounter with the strange and sinister Drood, a figure that continues to obsess and haunt him--or at least this is what Collins believes. And Drood himself becomes the muse or motive or mystery behind Dickens' final, unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Simmons' Collins comes across as a bitter, vindictive, arbitrarily cruel man. I haven't read any biographies or contemporary accounts of him, so I don't know whether this is an accurate portrayal or not. However, I very much enjoyed his novels The Moonstone and The Woman in White, while I find Dickens virtually unreadable. (Is it heresy for an English major to say this? I no longer care.) Dickens, though, fares no better in the novel, emerging as a narcissistic, controlling figure who insists that his "friends" refer to him as "The Inimitable."

The portrayals of both men intrigued me enough that I'm adding biographies of them to my Wish List, and I downloaded a couple more Collins novels for my new Kindle (a Christmas present from my parents).

Does that make Simmons' book a success? I'm not sure. There are definitely suspenseful, dark, creepy aspects that make for satisfying reading. But, as in some of his other lengthy works (and many of Stephen King's, as well), I get the sense that Simmons wrote himself into a corner and wasn't sure how to extricate the plot. The ending seems rushed, abrupt, and anticlimactic; the novel builds and builds toward what should be an intense climax but doesn't quite deliver.

That said, not every writer can take two disagreeable, arrogant, nasty, manipulative characters and make them compelling enough that I'm willing to turn almost 800 pages to learn their fates. Simmons certainly deserves props for doing that, and doing it very well.

30. "The Devil's Punchbowl" by Greg Iles

I've really enjoyed Greg Iles' previous novels set in and around Natchez, Mississippi, so I was eager to read his latest, The Devil's Punchbowl. However, I don't think it's up to par with his earlier work.

 Part of this has to do with the subject matter, which includes descriptions of dogfighting and sexual assaults. I found myself skipping pages because I didn't want to read the details. I think both crimes are reprehensible, and clearly so does Iles. I have strong opinions about what should be done to perpetrators, and so, it seems, does Iles. And I think fiction can be a powerful force for social outrage and change. But...for me, personally, some subjects are more difficult to read about than others, and anything that has to do with abuse of animals or children is at the top of the list. I seriously considered not finishing the book, but I wanted to know what happened to the characters.

Verdict?  Even more so than Iles' other novels, this one isn't for the squeamish. And it won't be finding a permanent home on my bookshelf with the rest of his ouevre.