The Death Collector by Justin Richards

Horror fans will delight in this British import by Justin Richards (Bloomsbury, 2006) set in foggy London in the 1800s. George Archer toils in the back offices of the British Museum as the youngest member of the Department of Unclassified Artifacts. When thieves burst in and kill his co-worker, George attempts to uncover why a scrap of paper from an obscure scientist's diary would be worth a man's life. Circumstances lead George to team up with a minister's daughter and a homeless pickpocket. The trio discovers the diary is sought by Augustus Lorimore, an industrialist with delusions of grandeur. The chase is on and narrator Steven Pacey picks up the pace and leads listeners on a breathless romp through Victorian London complete with a séance, walking zombies, and a fire-breathing monster. Taken from Amazon.com

I once read from Nancy Pearl that you have to give every book a chance before giving up on it. Read at least 50 pages and if you're not hooked on it then you can put it down. I wanted to give a review for this book even though I didn't finish it. I had hopes for this book because the jacket summary caught my interest. I'm always interested in zombies and mystery but I had the hardest time reading this book. I read to page 80 before completely giving up because I felt so lost.
The writing is too slow and very little of what I read actually made me want to continue on. Too many characters were introduced in a short amount of time and I kept having to turn back pages to keep track of who was who. One or two things were interesting to note...one part of the plot reminded me of the summary for the movie The Librarian which was very cheesy but far more entertaining than this book. I did find one other review off amazon that was basically saying the same thing as me and they also gave up on the book. I would love to give this book another try after this semester but I just find the book far too slow and confusing right now.