Devil in the Fog & The Mystery of Edwin Drood: Two Full-Cast BBC Radio Dramatisations

A full-cast historical mystery by award-winning author Leon Garfield, plus his captivating conclusion to The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens

Leon Garfield was the renowned author of more than 30 novels for children and adults. He won numerous awards for his work, including the Carnegie Medal, the Whitbread Award and the inaugural Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. Inspired by Charles Dickens, he set many of his tales in the 18th and 19th century, and became Dickens’ co-author when he wrote an ending to The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which was left unfinished on Dickens’ death. Their joint version was dramatised for radio in 1990, and is included here, together with an adaptation of one of Garfield’s own thrilling adventures.

Devil in the Fog – The oldest child in a family of travelling actors, 14-year-old George Treet lives a happy life with his father and six siblings. The only blot on his happiness is ‘The Stranger’, a shadowy, mysterious figure who arrives twice-yearly, hands Mr Treet a sum of money and disappears. But the Stranger’s final visit leads Mr Treet to reveal a terrible secret: George is the son of a nobleman, and must return to his real family. Reluctantly reunited with his true father, Sir John Dexter, George does his best to settle into his forbidding new home. But danger is waiting in the fog that surrounds the house – and George soon realises that someone is out to kill him... Tim McMullan and Joe Dempsie star in this rip-roaring tale of highwaymen, duels, swirling fogs and escaped convicts.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood – Orphan Edwin Drood is engaged to the beautiful Rosa Bud. But his uncle John Jasper, the choirmaster of Cloisterham Cathedral and a secret opium addict, wants Rosa for himself. Then Neville Landless arrives with his twin sister, Helena, and he too falls in love with Rosa. When Edwin disappears, presumed murdered, both Neville and Jasper have a motive – but which of them is the killer? Dickens’ famously unfinished novel never answers this question, but in this suspenseful drama, starring Ian Holm, Mark Payton and Moir Leslie, Leon Garfield provides an ingenious and satisfying solution.

Devil-in-the-Fog text copyright © 1966 by Leon Garfield The Mystery of Edwin Drood text copyright © 1980 by Charles Dickens and Leon Garfield

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© 2025 BBC Digital Audio (Lydbog): 9781529939644

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Lydbog: 26. juni 2025