Written by Gyles Brandreth

Book Synopsis:

'I see murder in this unhappy hand!' When Mrs Robinson, palmist to the Prince of Wales, reads Oscar Wilde's palm she cannot know what she has predicted. Nor can Oscar know what he has set in motion when, that same evening, he proposes a game of 'Murder' in which each of his Sunday Supper Club guests must write down those whom they would like to kill. For the fourteen 'victims' begin to die mysteriously, one by one, and in the order in which their names were drawn from the bag! With growing horror, Wilde and his confidantes Robert Sherard and Arthur Conan Doyle, realise that one of their guests that evening must be the murderer.

In a race against time, Wilde will need all his powers of deduction and knowledge of human behaviour before he himself -- the thirteenth name on the list -- becomes the killer's next victim.

Reader's Review:

A really enjoyable murder mystery once you got over the first couple of chapters when you were bombarded with a galaxy of late Victorian 'celebrities' which the author expects you to be familiar with.  My daughter, who initially chose the book to review, passed it across to me almost immediately - she had never heard of most of them so gave up on the book.  I had better luck and stuck with it - I'm glad I did as it was an excellent who dunnit with plenty of twists in the tale.  I don't think I learnt anything particularly new about Oscar Wilde and his cronies but it was certainly a refreshing look at the man and his times.

Reviewed by Elaine Carter on 06/07/2008