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Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile: A Mystery
Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile: A Mystery
Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile: A Mystery
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Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile: A Mystery

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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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.

As intelligent as it is beguiling, this third installment in the richly historical mystery series is sure to captivate and entertain.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherGallery Books
Release dateSep 1, 2009
ISBN9781416987208
Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile: A Mystery
Author

Gyles Brandreth

Gyles Brandreth is a prominent BBC broadcaster, novelist, biographer, and a former Member of Parliament. He is also the author of the Oscar Wilde Mystery series. Find out more at GylesBrandreth.net.

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Reviews for Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile

Rating: 3.5423728745762713 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

59 ratings7 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Third book in this series and I'm still enjoying!This time Oscar Wilde is in America on a lecture tour in the 1880s. A rough and tumble time in the country. While at a stop in Leadville, Colorado, Oscar made the acquaintance of Eddie Garstrang. Garstrang was a professional gambler and marksman/sharpshooter. Garstrang also rescued Wilde from a bad situation in a casino.Sailing by back to England he meets up with the French impresario Edmond La Grange and his entourage. The entourage that includes; La Grange's mother, Lisolotte La Grange - an ancient stage star with illusions of her still beautiful and in charge, who is accompanied by her out of control, spoiled French Poodle - Marie Antoinette; Gabrielle de la Tourbillon - an actress and Edmond's mistress; Carlos Branco, Richard Marais, Pierre Ferrand, and Bernard La Grange and Agnès La Grange - Edmond's grown children. Wilde also found that Eddie Garstrang was also on board and part of the La Grange entourage.The strange happenings started when it was time to disembark from the ship in Liverpool. Somehow Marie Antoinette was found murdered and packed with dirt into Wilde's trunk. A trunk that Wilde had packed with his books, not a dead dog.Wilde had agreed to meet up with La Grange in Paris to work on a new staging of "Hamlet." Strange events continue to happen but the reactions to them are indifferent on the part of the others. This just fuels Wilde's curiosity even more and he finds himself digging to find out what is behind them. Misdirection and blind alleys are what he runs up against.Brandreth's writing brings alive the era and makes me feel that I am seeing it through my eyes. The twists and turns keep me thinking and trying to solve it on my own, yet enjoying the journey.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    While I say that I read this novel, I would be vaugely lying. I skimmed it, which was a shame since I really wanted to enjoy this book. Oscar Wilde coupled with a murder-mystery? How can you get any better than that?

    It was more the style of writing that put me off. I was determined to not have to put this book on my 'didn't-finish' shelf, because I was actually excited to read it.
    First and foremost, the chapter layout was a particular mess, although this is a minor defect considering only the second chapter was off. It skipped from first person from the view point of Robert Sherard to a curious, very biographical and very iffy chapter on Oscar's voyage to America which seemed more like an Introductory note than a chapter and would probably serve better as the prologue or something akin.
    I also found it very slow, though I could see that it was trying to replicate the storytelling abilities of the Victorian era.

    Aside from the poor writing which unfortunately put me off it completely, the portrayal of Oscar Wilde was quite beautiful and was exactly how one should-and how I-imagine Oscar Wilde would have spoken, acted and looked.
    Disappointing, but what can you do.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Anti-rec. ALL of the victims are people of color. There's a hideous apologia for father/daughter incest. The deaf character is proved a liar and cheat. The American is a killer. And the narrators' attitudes toward the victims is to treat them as unfortunate collateral damage in the course of telling a story. Appalling. And that doesn't even begin to touch the gender politics. Bizarrely, the gay relationships were the only ones that weren't offensive.

    I need to go sanitize my brain now.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Great fun - somtimes difficult to pick out where history and fiction overlap - but great feel for fin de siecle decadence - did thet really do so many fags and so much booze?
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a terrific read and I look forward to reading the other books in the series. The reader really gets the feel of the time and place of the story. I enjoy reading historical fiction that then leads me to read nonfiction about the real people featured in the book. Oscar Wilde is a fascinating figure in history and literature and adding "detective" to his resume is an interesting twist. He'll never compete with Sherlock Holmes, but these Oscar Wilde mysteries could make for an interesting movie or TV series.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The ending was a convoluted surprise.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the third of Gyles Brandreth's mystery series with Oscar Wilde as the central character and Wilde's real-life friend Robert Sherard as the narrator. In the first book of the series, Brandreth answers some questions about the genesis of the series. When he was a boy, he got to know a man who had known Wilde and shared stories about him, and some of his first and most favorite books were those of Oscar Wilde as well as Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. He read both over and over. He was amazed and delighted to find out that Wilde and Conan Doyle were friends.The third book in the series jumps around in time. It begins in London in 1890. Wilde, his biographer Robert Sherard, and Arthur Conan Doyle visit Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors, and Sherard gives Conan Doyle a manuscript of earlier days, including the meeting and early friendship of Sherard and Wilde. That tale is the bulk of the book. It covers first Wilde's lecture tour in the United States in 1882 and his meeting with a gambler and gunslinger named Eddie Garstrang. On the ship back to London, Wilde spends much time with the La Grange acting troupe, and begins working with Edmond La Grange on a French translation of Hamlet. After a short time in London Wilde goes on to Paris where he works with La Grange and partakes of the incredible Parisian social life. He meets Robert Sherard, only 21, and they begin a life-long friendship. Strange things happen around the La Grange troupe, and Oscar's observant eye takes it all in and, in the end, solves a series of unnatural deaths, beginning with the death of old Madame La Grange's poodle aboard ship. The dog's body was put into Oscar's trunk.The book has a series of twists and turns, at least one of which looked at first like weak plotting but is redeemed by a later plot twist. The characters are endlessly fascinating, in part because Brandreth pulls in as much accurate history as he can. Paris in the 1880s becomes its own character, full of art, creativity and decadence. Sex and drugs they had in plenty, even if lacking the rock and roll. Those who wish to see Wilde as a gay icon will be disappointed in this book as his homosexuality is barely hinted at. I have not read the second book in the series, but see in a plot summary that it introduces Lord Alfred Douglas, so it may go into that subject more. Brandreth plans nine books in the series, following Wilde throughout his short life (he was 46 at his death) including his disgrace and imprisonment.Brandreth is not, to my mind, the greatest writer in the world. But the two books in the series that I have read are interesting and well worth reading. Wilde is a character that endlessly fascinates.

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Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile - Gyles Brandreth

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