Oscar Wilde and the Murders at Reading Gaol

After two subpar outings (most recently 2012’s Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders), Brandreth returns to form with his outstanding sixth Victorian whodunit, making the most of a difficult but intriguing premise. What if Oscar Wilde, while held between 1895 and 1897 in Reading Gaol, used his superior intellect to try to solve multiple murders at the prison? Earlier, at Wandsworth in London, an especially cruel warder dropped dead of uncertain causes in Wilde’s cell just before the disgraced playwright and wit was to be transferred. To Wilde’s shock, another warder dies at his new prison, the first of several mysterious deaths there. Brandreth smoothly integrates details of Wilde’s tormented existence behind bars and the sadism of the British penal system at the time into a complex mystery plot that only the most attentive reader will resolve correctly in advance of the denouement. Agent: Ed Victor, Ed Victor Ltd. (U.K.) (May)