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1894: Jack the Ripper may be back and Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle are on the case.
1894: Jack the Ripper may be back and Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle are on the case.
Jack the Ripper, the most notorious murderer in England. Never found but constantly hunted.
Several years after the original murders, a figure shrouded in mystery seems to be stalking the streets of London. Could it be that the most infamous murderer there is, is back?
Three men set out to solve one of the world’s most famous mysteries. This is the story through the eyes of Arthur Conan Doyle as he and close friend Oscar Wilde are drawn into the search. Wilde’s neighbour is the detective on the case and thinks that these two men – “A poet, a freemason and men of the world” could well be the way forward.
This is a tour of London’s most grisly sites yes, but so ,much more than that via the footsteps of Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde. This is the London which really existed and the friendship which really existed mingled together with mystery and intrigue.
Jack The Ripper was of course real, as was the friendship between Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle. They met in 1889 in the Langham Hotel in Portland Place. Oscar was already famous and Arthur had just published the first of his Sherlock Holmes although he was still working as a doctor in Southsea.
Susan: @thebooktrailer
This novel speaks to me on so many levels. Arthur Conan Doyle fascinates me in many ways. I know he was into mysteries in real life, the supernatural, the unknown and the other wordly, so what would he have made of Jack the Ripper?
There’s a lot to love:
The trail around London to the sites of the five canonical murders
More murders which take place in 1894 and are investigated as being committed by “Jack”.
The friendship between Oscar and Arthur , the banter, mystery and intrigue of being in their worlds as well as the very real one of Jack the Ripper and the fear that still endured. Very cleverly it’s written in the first person in the words of Arthur Conan Doyle. An author as character? Well I was just in literary heaven. As for Oscar Wilde, he seems like a right character! Full of colourful words and even more colourful actions, he’s a fun and fascinating man. The real friendship between them comes through loud and clear and add the Jack the Ripper mystery to the mix and I was sucked in from the very start.
How did I not know about this series of books where Oscar Wilde is the main character of such compelling mysteries? I am now excited to be going back to book one and to able to step inside this mix of fact and fiction. I really felt as I was in the presence of two great writers and the very real atmosphere of fear which would have existed not long after the Ripper murders. What I really loved was the warmth wit and banter between the two of them is what makes all this so believable. Some of it is, of course, and that’s what makes it so brilliant. The suspects we all know are there but so too are the fictional ones or ones brought in to suggest new suspects…..
A literary feast of delights. I have the pleasure of now going off and reading the others. Gyles, I thank you.
Destination: London Author/Guide: Gyles Brandreth Departure Time: 1894
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