Jack the Ripper, let's play a guessing game

Let’s play a game of ‘guess the author’ – who is a former European Monopoly champion and organised the first British Scrabble championship? He holds the record for the longest after-dinner speech at over 12 hours, got it yet? Ok, here’s more. He was an MP, he is chancellor of a British University, and president of the Oscar Wilde Society. More clues needed? He is an actor and broadcaster ….

Gyles Brandreth. Of all the roles mentioned above (and the list is not exhaustive), the one that comes into play with this book is the presidency of the Oscar Wilde Society. Most crime books set in Victorian England are dark and creepy, more Dickens than Peter Pan. ‘Jack the Ripper – Case Closed’ is a departure from the traditional crime novel set in the 19^th century in that the emphasis is on real-life main protagonists Oscar Wilde and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and their friendship. Many of the supporting cast too are well known historical people, so that in effect you are taking a romp through literary Victorian London.

Oscar Wilde

Without doubt, this is an interesting book, a police procedural with a difference. ‘Jack the Ripper’ is pretext for a witty exploration of the life and times of Oscar Wilde. Love him or hate him, he was clever and witty and Gyles Brandreth elegantly builds in numerous well-known Wilde quotes. Of course finding the murderer is a game to Wilde, but Conan Doyle takes the task much more seriously. In charge of the investigation is Chief Constable Macnaghten of Scotland Yard, a neighbour of Oscar Wilde (also based on a real historical figure, a senior police officer and Wilde’s neighbour, who when he retired, said he knew the real identity of Jack the Ripper).

‘Jack the Ripper – Case Closed’ is the seventh book of a hugely enjoyable series of Oscar Wilde crime capers. If you like reading well-researched historical crime with a touch of class, then Brandreth’s Oscar Wilde adventures are for you. Published by Corsair in 2017.