This story shall be about my friend (as at least about the man who was once my friend) Charles Dickens and about the accident that took away his peace of mind, his health, and, some might whisper, his sanity...' Sealed for one hundred and twenty-five years, Wilkie Collins's scribbled words launch a feverish descent into the underbelly of Victorian London as he is dragged into Charles Dickens's pursuit of a spectral figure known only as Drood. Their investigation will lead them through slums, opium dens, catacombs and sewers. What they discover will destroy their friendship, driving each writer to the very brink of insanity. And murder...