Friday, January 4, 2013

Cleaning house - Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders

I didn't totally love Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders (Gyles Brandreth), but I'm going to probably end up reading the other books in the series. I think I actually picked up the fourth or fifth in the series, but it was a totally random grab. I saw the title while browsing for something else at the BPL (Swamplandia!, I think?), and it caught my eye, and I liked the idea of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde running around solving crimes in Rome.

The problem is, I think the author may have also really liked the conceit, maybe a little too much. He just can NOT let go of this whole thing with Wilde being, basically, Holmes, and Doyle being, more or less, Watson. I swear to God, I wanted to start a drinking game - a shot every time Doyle declares he is a man of regular habits, or refers to the crisp/cool white sheets of the hotel. The former is almost every other page in the second half of the book!

But Wilde is a good character, poking at Doyle with humor and affection, and stands in as a good Holmes.


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