One day, Oscar Wilde goes into a room and discovers a dead rent boy who has had his throat slit. The result is Mr Wilde trying to find killer with his friend Robert Sherard, who narrates the novel. Wilde is fortunate enough to also have Arthur Conan Doyle as a friend, and he also makes several appearances. And there we have the ingredients for a very twee murder mystery.
This isn't a genre I'm hugely aquainted with, but the Candlelight Murders was all murder, with no mystery. It was a kind of whodunnit, but really it could have been anyone. Not in a clever way, it was just that there were no interesting or mysterious facts about any of the characters that made me think Oooh, it might be him. Or oh, it's definitely that guy. Red herrings were blantantly red herrings, and had nothing to do with anything. Or maybe I just wasn't getting into it properly.
What interested me most was the romantic subplot and, more specifically, the nineteenth century ideas surrounding homosexuality. To Wilde it was a world that he knew, to Sherard not so much, and it was interesting to see him explore something so unknown to him. That's a hugely fascinating thread to choose, especially knowing how it affected Wilde in his later life, in a time and place where there was no such word as 'homosexual'.
But still, Oscar Wilde as a fictional character. I'm not sure how I feel about that. It's weird. He was an actual living human being, and yet being made to say things and do things. Sure, his connections were great, and his lifestyle means that Sherard can have access to all sorts of highs and lows of London life. But why not make an original character with a similar wit and charm? I don't know. I'm still uncomfortable with the idea of taking a dead person and giving them a life they never actually had. I've never met Oscar Wilde, but Brandreth does a reasonable job in assuming the character and personality of the man. But, like I say, I hesitate, because I don't know him, and neither does Brandreth. Huh. You can tell I don't read historical fiction, eh?
The Candlelight Murders was a nice read. And I use the word nice because I mean that it was 'nice'. The creepier, darker, elements that I wanted only surfaced very briefly towards the end. There's a whole series of this, but I think this one was enough for me. Cute, and quaint, and not a waste of a cosy afternoon. Personally, I think I'll stick to Oscar Wilde's own writings.
