[beespeckled]

Louis Bayard, he transports you to the time period he is writing about, has plots that twist and turn. His writing is both plot and character driven. I'm anxiously awaiting his newest book School of Night to come in.

Mr. Timothy. setting is 15-20 years later from where Dickens' A Christmas Carole left off.
Brief blurb:
His father freshly buried, Mr. Timothy Cratchit embarks on the next phase of his life intent on two things: to rid himself of his image as a pitied cripple and to escape the financial shackles of his benevolent "Uncle" Ebenezer by vanishing into the thick of London's teeming underbelly. Plunging into the rolling brown fog of 1860's London, through filthy back alleys and boarding houses, Tim succeeds - or so he thinks - in sidestepping his past, but fate deals him a cruel blow when he discovers the bodies of two dead girls....