Last Sunday, just a few days after BBC2 had broadcast the newly completed version of Dickens's Edwin Drood (TV review, 11 January), Carlo Fruttero, an Italian author most famous as the literary partner of Franco Lucentini, died at his home, aged 86. I was struck by a curious coincidence – and I quote from Philip Willan's obituary of Fruttero's partner Franco Lucentini, in the Guardian, 9 August 2002: "In 1989, the intrepid pair embarked on the completion of Charles Dickens' unfinished novel The Mystery Of Edwin Drood. The result was The D Case Or The Truth About The Mystery Of Edwin Drood, a hilarious pastiche in which detectives gather in a Rome hotel to attempt to solve the mystery." I believe no English translation of this book was ever produced. My suggestion is that such an effort would be a valuable present to English readers on Dickens's 200th birthday and a well-deserved tribute to the memory of two brilliant Italian writers.
Alfonso Frigerio
Turin, Italy