02064cam a2200253 4500 204579962 TxAuBib 20080711120000.0 080107s2008||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 9781416551744 $24.00 1416551743 $24.00 TxAuBib Brandreth, Gyles Daubeney, 1948- Oscar Wilde and the candlelight murders. Oscar Wilde and a death of no importance / Gyles Brandreth. $24.00: New York : Touchstone Books, 2008. One of Britain's premier royal biographers pens the first in a series of fiendishly clever and stylish historical murder mysteriesLovers of historical mystery will relish this chilling Victorian tale based on real events and cloaked in authenticity. Best of all, it casts British literature's most fascinating and controversial figure as the lead sleuth.A young artist's model has been murdered, and legendary wit Oscar Wilde enlists his friends Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Sherard to help him investigate. But when they arrive at the scene of the crime they find no sign of the gruesome killing -- save one small spatter of blood, high on the wall. Set in London, Paris, Oxford, and Edinburgh at the height of Queen Victoria's reign, here is a gripping eyewitness account of Wilde's secret involvement in the curious case of Billy Wood, a young man whose brutal murder served as the inspiration for The Picture of Dorian Gray. Told by Wilde's contemporary -- poet Robert Sherard -- this novel provides a fascinating and evocative portrait of the great playwright and his own consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes creator, Arthur Conan Doyle. Wilde, Oscar 1854-1900 Fiction. Doyle, Arthur Conan Sir 1859-1930 Fiction. Murder Investigation Fiction. London (England) Social conditions 19th century Fiction. Detective and mystery fiction. Mystery Fiction.