Mysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, is publishing a new review of Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile by Gyles Brandreth. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.
Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile by Gyles Brandreth
An Oscar Wilde Mystery
Touchstone (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-4391-3728-5 (1439137285)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-3728-4 (9781439137284)
Publication Date: September 2009
List Price: $24.00
Review: Good friend, colleague, and poet Robert Sherard chronicles a new adventure for Oscar Wilde that spans over a year in his life in Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile, the third mystery in this series by Gyles Brandreth.
In late 1881, Wilde sets sail from Liverpool to New York City to embark on a year-long lecture tour of the United States. He ends his tour in New York City, where he meets the stage actor/manager Edmond La Grange, his family, and his company of actors. They will be returning on the same ship as Wilde back to Europe. The trip doesn't start well, though. La Grange's valet decides not to accompany him, so Wilde offers the services of his own valet, Tranquir, in his stead. Then someone kills La Grange's mother's pet dog. Soon after arriving in Paris, Tranquir is found dead in his room, an apparent suicide. La Grange's son, Bernard seems to have taken to the streets as a vagrant and his twin sister, Agnes, screams or breaks into tears at the drop of a hat (so to speak). "What is it with this family?" Wilde wonders. When he begins digging into their lives, he uncovers a staggering secret that affects every member of the La Grange family and many of their associates.
As Oscar Wilde was a real person, and are several of the characters that populate the book, from Arthur Conan Doyle to Sarah Bernhardt, and with the retrospective manner in which the story is told, it's hard at times to remember that Edmond La Grange and his family are fictional, so well drawn are they. It's a well-spun tale of mystery and intrigue, and Oscar Wilde and his wide sphere of friends and associates are very enjoyable characters to get to know. Wilde's famous wit is also prominently on display ("You should never trust a man that shows you his lower teeth when he smiles," he quips) as is his keen intellect in solving a series of most mysterious crimes. This third book, Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile, like the series itself, is highly recommended.
Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile and to Touchstone for providing a copy of the book for this review.
Review Copyright © 2009 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
If you are interested in purchasing Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile from Amazon.com, please click the button to the right.
Synopsis (from the publisher): Playwright and raconteur Oscar Wilde embarks on another adventure as he sets sail for America in the 1880s on a roller coaster of a lecture tour.
But the adventure doesn't truly begin until Oscar boards an ocean liner headed back across the Atlantic and joins a motley crew led by French impresario Edmond La Grange. As Oscar becomes entangled with the La Grange acting dynasty, he suspects that all is not as it seems.
What begins with a curious death at sea soon escalates to a series of increasingly macabre tragedies once the troupe arrives in Paris to perform Hamlet. A strange air of indifference surrounds these seemingly random events, inciting Oscar to dig deeper, aided by his friends Robert Sherard and the divine Sarah Bernhardt. What he discovers is a horrifying secret -- one that may bring him closer to his own last chapter than anyone could have imagined.
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