I just finished "Drood" by Dan Simmons, an entertainingly bizarre fictionalization of the last five years in the life of Charles Dickens, from the Staplehurst Rail Disaster to his death exactly five years later. It includes his involvement with a demonic underworld master criminal named Drood and mesmerism. The story is being narrated by his increasingly drug-addled collaborator Wilkie Collins, author of "the Moonstone". I hear that Guillermo del Toro will be making it into a movie, which should make for a spectrally atmospheric period piece.