Audrey Driscoll can flat out write. Her magnum opus, a trio that is really a quartet, begins with The Friendship of Mortals, a stunner of a whopping novel. A character study set from 1910-1938, the book combines historical fiction with strong dollops of Edgar Allen Poe, Henry James, Mary Shelley, and Stephen King.
The Ahab-like central character, renegade physician Herbert West, lures our Ishmael-like narrator, the meek Charles Milburn, to assist him in increasingly dangerous and illegal experimental activities involving, well, revivification. The plot, aided and enriched by the finely wrought journalist, Alma, slowly envelopes a reader until reaching a fever pitch at the climax.
To get back to the writing: The tone is sure, the descriptions and word paintings lush, the action inevitable, and the reader's suspension of disbelief complete. I spent many an evening reading this tome (it's not a short book), and relished every minute.
I'm looking forward to reading the next three in the series. Experience tells me I won't be disappointed.
(reviewed 30 days after purchase)