Status
Available
Call number
Series
Genres
Publication
Touchstone (2008), 418 pages
Description
In OSCAR WILDE AND THE RING OF DEATH, the second in Gyles Brandreth's acclaimed Oscar Wilde Murder Mysteries series featuring Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle, a parlour game of 'Murder' has lethal consequences... 'Intelligent, amusing and entertaining' Alexander McCall Smith '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.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member cammykitty
It was fun to follow Oscar and his friends around England. Obviously, the book was very well researched, even including a few historical footnotes. Amusing innuendos and witticisms are on every page. As a mystery though, it lacked tension and there weren't enough clues to keep the reader engaged in
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unraveling the puzzle. The evidence, once the answer is unveiled, so it is "fair" by mystery terms but the mystery still feels dilute in a way. Show Less
LibraryThing member reannon
This is the second of a planned nine in Brandreth's Oscar Wilde series. Oscar has started a gentleman's club called the Socrates club, and invites interesting people to join, so that he can have good conversation with good food. Often the meetings have a theme or a game. One night the game is to
Brandreth sticks as close as he can to history. One amusing bit of it in this book is Arthur Conan Doyle talking about how he wants to be rid of Sherlock Holmes, so that he can write other things.
Well-done book, looking forward to the rest of the series.
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write on a slip of paper the name of the person they would most like to murder, put it in a bag, and then the names would be read out with people guessing who put in each name. The answers are rather awkward, and in the coming days people on the list start dying. Oscar has to figure out what is happening and why.Brandreth sticks as close as he can to history. One amusing bit of it in this book is Arthur Conan Doyle talking about how he wants to be rid of Sherlock Holmes, so that he can write other things.
Well-done book, looking forward to the rest of the series.
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LibraryThing member dsc73277
Terrific fun. Even better than the first in the series. I'm generally uncomfortable with creating fictional events involving real historic characters, but these books are so good that I willing put aside such scruples.
LibraryThing member devenish
Oscar Wilde and a circle of his friends,famous and not so famous,meet at a club invented by Wilde. On this particular occasion,the "Socrates Club" play a game thought out by Wilde called quite simple 'Murder'. Each member writes the name of someone he would like to kill he then places the slip of
This is the second in this series of books by Gyles Brandreth and they are certainly clever and enjoyable reads. I am always a little uncertain when real characters and fictional ones are mixed as it doesn't always work. Here however it seems to gel fairly happily. It is not too difficult a task to discover the killer but that doesn't spoil the overall enjoyment.
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paper in a hat . The name is then drawn out by someone else and members attempt to discover who wishes to murder whom. When people begin to die in reality Oscar Wilde in his role of detective,sets out to discover just who is the killer.This is the second in this series of books by Gyles Brandreth and they are certainly clever and enjoyable reads. I am always a little uncertain when real characters and fictional ones are mixed as it doesn't always work. Here however it seems to gel fairly happily. It is not too difficult a task to discover the killer but that doesn't spoil the overall enjoyment.
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LibraryThing member raschneid
This book gets points for being a murder mystery about Oscar Wilde; I enjoyed the setting and writing. However, it didn't totally live up to its premise. Particularly, I thought the large cast of characters was established clunkily, the first-person Watson-like narrator was rather irritatingly
It's possible that some of the problems I had with the characters are due to the fac that I couldn't get hold of the first book in the series; mystery novels are usually meant to stand alone, but possibly we got to know the narrator, for instance, better in the first volume.
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non-present in his own life, and the murder mystery itself not particularly elegant. It also really bothered me that none of the characters, including Wilde, were particularly proactive about what appeared to be a serial killer on the loose, and kept chalking things up to coincidence.It's possible that some of the problems I had with the characters are due to the fac that I couldn't get hold of the first book in the series; mystery novels are usually meant to stand alone, but possibly we got to know the narrator, for instance, better in the first volume.
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LibraryThing member sageness
Lacks much of the first one's charm.
LibraryThing member ChazziFrazz
Another in the series of Oscar Wilde as a detective. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is again in it and also Bram Stoker, Walter Sickert and the Marquess of Queensbury.
During a dinner of the Socrates Club, Wilde proposes a game of Murder with the question of "Who would you kill?" Each attendee writes their
Wilde and the amateur detectives find themselves searching in the realms of politics, theatre and hidden secrets while trying to solve the murders before the next one happens. Relationships and personal histories are revealed in their search for the solutions.
Once again I enjoyed the feeling of being in Victorian London. A not so proper period. The descriptions of the characters and their actions; the scenes of the events all contribute to the enjoyment. There is action and also puzzlement as the pieces of the puzzle start to fit in an order that will give the whole picture.
During a dinner of the Socrates Club, Wilde proposes a game of Murder with the question of "Who would you kill?" Each attendee writes their
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choice on a slip of paper which are then drawn randomly and read. All is done in fun and games until the names on that list start turning up dead in the sequence they appear on the list. Who is the murderer? Are the deaths related or are they chance events?Wilde and the amateur detectives find themselves searching in the realms of politics, theatre and hidden secrets while trying to solve the murders before the next one happens. Relationships and personal histories are revealed in their search for the solutions.
Once again I enjoyed the feeling of being in Victorian London. A not so proper period. The descriptions of the characters and their actions; the scenes of the events all contribute to the enjoyment. There is action and also puzzlement as the pieces of the puzzle start to fit in an order that will give the whole picture.
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Language
Original publication date
2008-05-01