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OSCAR WILDE AND THE VAMPIRE MURDERS
by Gyles Brandreth
Touchstone, May 2011
366 pages
$15.00
ISBN: 143915368X


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

The fourth in the Oscar Wilde series is the most assured yet. Nothing will replace my memory of the sheer fun and audacity of the first novel (I have reviewed all three earlier novels for RTE). But here the author truly finds his stride. Oscar's bon mots continue to sparkle, but one feels that Brandreth is striving less hard for effect, and, as a result, the novel is all the more enjoyable. As before, one of Brandreth's basic conceits is that Oscar — "dilettante, dandy, detective – and man of genius" — is an unacknowledged model for Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle returns as a main character, and many of the words put into Oscar's mouth are those uttered by Holmes in Doyle's stories.

The UK title is OSCAR WILDE AND THE NEST OF VIPERS. It is the better title, but to explain why would involve some major spoilers. I presume the US publishers changed it to take advantage of the current vampire craze in the US. True, a major character, the fictional actor and artist Rex LaSalle, claims he is a vampire, the real life Bram Stoker is another major figure, the heroes attend a vampire cult meeting in Mortlake, and murder victims have two puncture wounds on their bodies.

In the manner of DRACULA, the text is a mixture of journal entries, letters, and telegrams from eight different correspondents, along with newspaper clippings, invitations, a death certificate, programs, and the like, creating a total of 85 entities. Among them the author has fairly planted the clues to who the perpetrator is, the motive for the crimes, and enough red herrings to keep the reader alert. It is no spoiler to give Wilde's summary of the case. In answer to the question, "What lies at the heart of this tragedy?" he answers, "Love [...] And pride [...] And enmity."

The date is March 1890 — some sixteen months after the Jack the Ripper case, eight months after the Cleveland Street scandal broke, a month after the magazine publication of THE SIGN OF FOUR, four months before the magazine publication of THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, twenty-two months before Prince Eddy's death, seven years before DRACULA, and thirty-four before Doyle's "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire." (Wanting to know more about the period and some of the principals, I followed up the novel with Theo Aronson's highly interesting account of PRINCE EDDY AND THE HOMOSEXUAL UNDERWORLD, 1994.)

In addition to Wilde, Doyle, and Stoker, other historical characters include Robert Sherard, continuing his role as chronicler of Oscar's prodigious exploits; the playboy Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII); his son, the strange Prince Eddy; Edward's former mistress, the actress Lillie Langtry, who turns out to be very important to the case; the French dancer Jane Avril, who provides more useful information; and briefly the Czech composer Antonin Dvorak. Brandreth also has fun with a character from Doyle's "The Man with the Twisted Lip": the beggar Hugh Boone is here a London police inspector.

The first murder, that of the thirty-year-old Duchess of Albemarle, is passed off to the public as a natural death in her bed from heart disease. But her body was actually found in a small telephone room, her clothing torn from her and "her full breasts, horribly disfigured with scratch marks." There are "bloody marks upon her neck" — "two sharp incisions, positioned below her earlobe, beneath her jaw, side by side, no more than an inch apart." She is just the first of the vampire murders. But since she was the Prince of Wale's mistress, Edward wants Oscar to find the truth.

As usual in the series, there are various excursions across and out of London. There is the night visit to the meeting of the vampire cult. Stoker records in a letter to his wife, "Oscar and his young 'vampire' friend – a pale-faced Adonis by the name of Rex LaSalle – were in their element, and entered wholeheartedly into the spirit of the occasion, while the other two – Robert Sherard and Arthur Conan Doyle (good man) – were more circumspect. At the finish, Doyle, I think, was frankly shocked. I had my reservations, too." The case takes Arthur, in his role as physician, to a mental institution specializing in "the pathology of hysteria" and a meeting with a callous research psychiatrist there. It takes Oscar to Paris.

Then it ends back where it began: Albemarle House on Grosvenor Square. There the final tragic events are set in motion, and Oscar reveals the truth and averts another royal scandal. It is sad how entirely plausible the murderer's motive appears.

§ Drewey Wayne Gunn, Professor Emeritus at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, is author of THE GAY MALE SLEUTH IN PRINT AND FILM (2005) and editor of THE GOLDEN AGE OF GAY FICTION (2009), a collection of essays, including his own "Down These Queer Streets a Man Must Go," and a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and a Benjamin Franklin Award.

Reviewed by Drewey Wayne Gunn, April 2011

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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