The book is a great read; it flows along smoothly and I was anxious to see how it all turned out - Dickens would be proud!

The Dickens manuscript tells the captivating story of an innocent bookseller who is caught in the middle of a life-or-death battle for a unique and valuable manuscript thought to be penned by none other than Mr. Charles Dickens. Happily content running his second hand bookshop on the South coast of England, our hero's world is turned upside down by the arrival of an old friend of his father who leaves in his care a manuscript of unknown origin. Within days he is visited by one beautiful and captivating woman after the other, both keen on pursuing his acquaintance. Shortly after he discovers that his father's friend, an ex-MI6 agent has been murdered and is led to suspect that one or either of his new woman friends have befriended him for nefarious reasons, in order to obtain the precious manuscript. What unfolds then takes the reader from the dusty old bookshop to fight or flight scenes on the cliffs overlooking a precipitous drop into the English channel at Sandown the Isle of Wight.

The book held my attention well and the story unfolded in a curious original way. The story had me guessing right up to the end of which of the women was good and which bad. I felt that some of the pages taken from the Dickens manuscript were perhaps a bit long drawn, particularly near the end of the book when the reader was impatient to know the outcome of the climactic scene, but maybe the author designed it precisely thus to keep the reader on the edge of his seat. All in all a right ripping read and I strongly recommend it!

A very good read. I particularly like this author.

An excellent book from beginning to end

In The Dickens Manuscript we are presented here with the nice concept of a hitherto undiscovered work by the famous 19th century author. It forms the heart of this unusual yarn that embraces love, villainy, fantasy and a liberal sprinkling of delightful literary references that reflect the author’s own background in the rarified atmosphere of second-hand books. He treats us to many an interesting snippet of information gleaned from his extensive reading of works both ancient and modern. It all blends well together, and turns what some might have imagined could be a fairly dull subject into an exciting tale where we come to care about the protagonist and the eventual outcome of the dilemma he finds himself in as the temporary custodian of a priceless manuscript that others will stop at nothing to acquire.

In the course of the story we become acquainted with the content of the newly-discovered Dickensian tale – set mostly in Ireland at the time of the potato famine, although from the occasional direct quotes from that novel, we might ponder on quite why an expert immediately suspected the text to be the work of the famous writer! (And why, I wonder, would Charles Dickens have his heroine – a lass from County Cork – use the Ulster-Scots word, 'ochone'?) However, the author of The Dickens Manuscript cleverly avoids having to expend too much effort in trying to emulate the style of Dickens by having his narrator precis most of the story for us in contemporary fashion. Interspersing the 19th century tale with the protagonist’s current adventures seems to work well.

Introducing a third stream, however, with Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s science fiction/fantasy novel, The Coming Race (indulging, I suspect, the author’s fascination with the possibility of political mind-control of the masses) was, perhaps a tale-within-a-tale too far. The pertinent points from that novel as it cleverly relates to the present story could have been briefly explained without necessarily including so much background material, interesting though it was.

Having said that, The Dickens Manuscript makes for a very readable yarn that keeps you wanting to know what happens next, right up to the surprising dénouement where the protagonist’s love for the girl of his dreams, in a moment of crisis, totally overrules his deep passion and love of literature. A rewarding read!