Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death (Audiobook)

Synopsis: 'I see murder in this unhappy hand...' When Mrs Robinson, palmist to the Prince of Wales, reads Oscar Wilde's palm she cannot know what she has predicted. Nor can Oscar know what he has set in motion when, that same evening, he proposes a game of 'Murder' in which each of his Sunday Supper Club guests must write down those whom they would like to kill. For the fourteen 'victims' begin to die mysteriously, one by one, and in the order in which their names were drawn from the bag...With growing horror, Wilde and his confidantes Robert Sherard and Arthur Conan Doyle, realise that one of their guests that evening must be the murderer. In a race against time, Wilde will need all his powers of deduction and knowledge of human behaviour before he himself -- the thirteenth name on the list -- becomes the killer's next victim.

Review: Despite loving Oscar Wilde and murder mysteries I had put off reading/listening to these books because I'm not particularly a fan of Gyles Brandreth (and that's putting it mildly). However, the library was pretty low on choice and the title was attracting me like a magnet, and also I remembered seeing these books recommended on the book club forum so I made the choice to bring this one home.

I'm glad I did, I loved everything about it. Gyles obviously knows his stuff and I had no problem whatsoever believing that I was reading about true events in the life and times of Oscar Wilde. I loved the way in which he used a cast of both real characters (Oscar, Bosie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Walter Sickert, Bram Stoker & Robert Sherard etc) and fictional and the way in which he fleshed out the lesser known characters. Also loved the way in which Gyles's Oscar was a kind of mixture of Oscar Wilde and Sherlock Holmes, deducing everything long before anyone else, being incredibly witty and insightful and making almost everyone else around him seem quite dim and slow on the uptake.

The plotline is a delicious one, Oscar proposes a game of 'murder' in which all of his fourteen dinner guests are asked to write down, on a slip of paper, the name of the person they would most like to murder. These names are then drawn from a hat and read out one by one. Of course, it's not long (barely a few hours) before the person first out of the hat is murdered, and this murder is followed by several others all in sequence. Oscar has a particular interest in solving the crime quickly for as well as feeling a bit guilty about proposing the game in the first place, he himself has been named as the thirteenth proposed victim and his wife Constance is fourteenth.

I loved the dénouement, I had made some half guesses and was correct in a couple of instances but on the whole I was as in the dark and blinkered as most of Oscar's companions. I believe I felt as much wonder as they did as the truth was revealed. Yes there is a big nod to both Conan Doyle's and Agatha Christie's stories and probably any murder mystery fan worth their salt will be able to work out whodunnit long before the end but I'm always incredibly obtuse when it comes to unravelling clues and I'm thankful for it because I can usually read detective novels in complete ignorant bliss.

Oscar is portrayed as incredibly intelligent and witty and also neglectful, selfish and self absorbed which is probably a fairly accurate portrayal. You get the feeling that he could be both delightful to be with and dispiriting, depending on his mood or the affection in which he held you. I loved spending time with him and his companions at Tite Street, The Socrates Club and London in general, so much so that I must read, or listen to, the others in the series asap.