Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders - Audiobook

Synopsis: London, 1889. Oscar Wilde, celebrated poet, wit, playwright and raconteur is the literary sensation of his age. All Europe lies at his feet. Yet when he chances across the naked corpse of sixteen-year-old Billy Wood, posed by candlelight in a dark, stifling attic room, he cannot ignore the brutal murder. With the help of fellow author Arthur Conan Doyle he sets out to solve the crime – but it is Wilde’s unparalleled access to all degrees of late Victorian life, from society drawing rooms and the bohemian demi-monde to the underclass, that will prove the decisive factor in their investigation of what turns out to be a series of brutal killings.

Review: Again I listened to this read by Bill Wallis and again I thoroughly enjoyed it. This is the first of the series so I've 'read' them in the wrong sequence but they stand alone easily like a Sir Arthur Conon Doyle novel. I love being immersed in Oscar's world (albeit an entirely fictional one) and I'm very fond of Gyles's version of Robert Sherard who narrates the books (though he really did need a good talking to in this story.) I found that although Oscar speaks in witticisms and bon mots far more than he probably did in real life, it didn't irritate me in the way that say things like 'Becoming Jane' irritated me - that seemed to suggest that every time Jane said something she thought clever she wrote it down and put it in one of her books. The dialogue wherever possible was made up of Austen quotations, as if she never had another thought in her head. I hated that, but somehow I like this, maybe it's because a lot of the quotations are fresh to me.

Anyhow, although I enjoyed this enormously, I did slightly prefer Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death maybe because it included Lord Alfred Douglas and that added an extra touch of spice. Another rattling read to luxuriate in and wonderfully read.