New Reviews: Bilal, Brandreth, Carter, de Giovanni, McGowan, Smith

Win Carnage by Maxim Chattam (UK only).

Here are this week's reviews, with two set in Italy, two with missing children themes, plus non Euro settings including Cairo, Russia and the USA:

Lynn Harvey strongly recommends Parker Bilal's The Golden Scales, which introduces Makana, a Sudanese exile who's fetched up in Cairo, now working as a PI;

There are more literary capers from Gyles Brandreth in his Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders, out in paperback this week, and reviewed here by Terry Halligan;

Michelle Peckham suspends disbelief and rather enjoys Philip Carter's globe-trotting Altar of Bones now out in paperback;

Maxine Clarke reviews one of an increasing number of titles from Italian authors being translated into English, with Maurizio de Giovanni's I Will Have Vengeance, tr. Anne Milano Appel the first in the Commissario Ricciardi series;

Lizzie Hayes reviews Claire McGowan's debut novel, The Fall set in London and calls it "an amazing first book"

and Susan White reviews Anna Smith's second Rosie Gilmour book, To Tell the Truth which she found slightly uncomfortable reading due to its similarity to the 'Maddy' case.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by Janet Laurence, James Runcie, Carlos Ruiz Zafon and Anne Zouroudi have been added to these pages this week.

New Reviews: Brandreth, Cain, Franklin, Kallentoft, Leonard, Rimington, Smith

October's Competition: Win a copy of Strangled in Paris by Claude Izner (UK only)

Here are this week's new reviews:

Susan White reviews Gyles Brandreth's fourth book featuring Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde and the Nest of Vipers (US title is Oscar Wilde and the Vampire Murders);

Rich Westwood reviews Tom Cain's Dictator also the fourth in the series;

Lynn Harvey reviews the fourth and last Adelia Aguilar from the late Ariana Franklin which is now out in paperback, The Assassin's Prayer (US title is A Murderous Procession);

Maxine Clarke reviews the first in the Superintendent Malin Fors series from Mons Kallentoft: Midwinter Sacrifice, tr. Neil Smith;

Terry Halligan reviews Peter Leonard's All He Saw Was The Girl, set in Rome;

Lizzie Hayes reviews Stella Rimington's Rip Tide, the sixth in the Liz Carlyle MI5/6 series

and Amanda Gillies reviews the first of Anna Smith's new series, The Dead Won't Sleep, set in Glasgow.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by Gordon Ferris, Mons Kallentoft, Matt Benyon Rees, Michael Ridpath, Anna Smith and Jan Wallentin have been added to these pages this week.

New Reviews: Auswaks, Brandreth, Byrnes, Frimansson, Hayes, Nesbo & New Competitions

Three new competitions have been added to the website this week:

i)Win a copy of Crocodile Tears by Anthony Horowitz (US only)
ii)Win a copy of Beautiful Dead: Arizona by Eden Maguire (UK only)
iii)Win a copy of Sheer Folly by Carola Dunn (UK/Europe only)

Details on how to enter can be found on the Competition page

Here are the new reviews that have been added to the website today:

Rik Shepherd reviews Sherlock Holmes in Russia, edited and translated by Alex Auswaks and finds it's not what he was expecting;

Terry Halligan is pleasantly surprised by Gyles Brandreth's Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile;

Amanda Gillies is disappointed with The Sacred Bones by Michael Byrnes;

Maxine Clarke reviews The Shadow in the Water by Inger Frimansson (the sequel to Good Night, My Darling);

Michelle Peckham reviews A Hard Death by Jonathan Hayes the second of his medical examiner series set in the US

and Maxine also reviews The Redeemer by Jo Nesbo (nb. coming soon...an interview with Jo Nesbo's translator Don Bartlett).

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found here.

New Reviews: Brandreth, Calderon, Charteris, Duns, Keating, Rayne, Schenkel

Just one day left in May's competition - win a copy of Suffer the Children by Adam Creed. (There are no geographical restrictions on entrants.) Enter here.

The following reviews have been added to the review archive over on the main Euro Crime website. The theme this week is historical crime:

New Reviews:

I review the audio book version of Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders by Gyles Brandreth (1889-90);

Laura Root reviews The Creator's Map by Emilio Calderon (WWII);

Rik Shepherd reviews The Best of the Saint: Volume One by Leslie Charteris (1930s);

Michelle Peckham reviews Free Agent by Jeremy Duns (1969);

Mike Ripley reviews A Small Case for Inspector Ghote? by H R F Keating (1964);

Amanda Gillies reviews Spider Light by Sarah Rayne (present day with flashbacks);

and Maxine Clarke reviews Ice Cold by Andrea Maria Schenkel(1930s).

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found here.

Review: Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders (audio book)

Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders by Gyles Brandreth, narrated by Bill Wallis (Chivers Audio Books, 10 CDs, Sep 2008, ISBN: 9781405684613)

This is the first in what I've heard is a projected ten books series. Three so far have been published and the first two are available in audio book format.

I've been intrigued by these for a while but finally pushed myself to try one as Gyles Brandreth was a guest at Crime Fest this year (and will be the toastmaster next year).

In Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders the story is quite straightforward. In the first few minutes Oscar strides into a house on Cowley Street and finds the body of a young boy, his throat is cut and he is surrounded by candles. The boy, Billy Wood, is a friend of Oscar's. However Oscar does not report his finding for 24 hours and when he returns to the room, the body is gone. The police won't investigate without a body so it's up to Oscar and his friend and narrator of these books, Robert Sherard, to solve the crime.

The downside to this book, for me, is the lack of actual detection. Very little information is uncovered and yet half way through, Oscar says he knows the murderer. But then nothing much happens again until the last three discs. The story ends with a classic "gather the suspects in the drawing room" session but the denouement won't completely surprise crime fiction fans. On the positive side, and what has made me reserve the next book in the series, Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death, is Oscar and his milieu. Oscar is a fascinating creature, with an endless supply of witticisms and is friend to the great and the good, such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry Irving and Millais. Listening to this book made me itch to learn more about these people and of course Oscar.

This book is set in 1889 - 1890, the next one begins is 1892. Unless Oscar gets very busy, it seems that some the later books in the series will have to take place after Oscar's stay in prison.

Bill Wallis provides a compelling narration as always, switching from an English accent to Irish and Scottish accents faultlessly and he gives Oscar the flamboyance you'd expect.

The US title for this book is Oscar Wilde and a Death of No Importance

The Euro Crime page with links to reviews and author website is here.

Publishing Deals - Brandreth & Eastland

From Publishers Lunch:

Gyles Brandreth's next three untitled Oscar Wilde Mysteries, featuring Oscar Wilde as the sleuth aided by his real-life friend Arthur Conan Doyle, to Trish Lande Grader at Touchstone Fireside, for publication in 2010, by Ed Victor (NA).

Sam Eastland's THE EYE OF THE RED TSAR, for a series featuring a Finnish agent, once Chief Inspector, confident and 'eye' of Tsar Nicholas II; set in 1929 and the agent is released from Gulag under mysterious circumstances to complete a special assignment for the new red Tsar, Stalin, to Kate Miciak at Bantam Dell, by Jason Cooper at Faber and Faber (US).

The third 'Oscar Wilde' mystery by Gyles Brandreth will be published in May 2009. The UK title is Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile. See my earlier post about the changes in titles for the first two books.

The Importance of Being Consistent

Gyles Brandreth's Oscar Wilde series has just been published in the US. Whereas the UK title was Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders the US title is Oscar Wilde and a Death of No Importance.

You can read an excerpt from book 1 at the Simon and Schuster site.

The second book in the series also suffers the same fate. Due out in May, the UK title is Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death and in September, the same book will come out in the US as Oscar Wilde and a Game Called Murder.

I really can't see why the titles need to be changed, both pairs of titles seem equally 'cozy'.

The Oscar Wilde Murders

The Scotsman has an interview with Gyles Brandreth who has just had published, 'Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders'. The interview explains his connection to Oscar Wilde, how he came to write the book and the fact that he intends nine volumes:

There will be nine books in the series Brandreth is planning to write about Wilde, and if they're all as enjoyable as his first, they'll all be surefire best-sellers.

Why? Because although he takes some liberties with Wilde - most obviously by turning him into an equally observant, if even more flamboyant, version of Sherlock Holmes - he doesn't take too many. The master's vintage Champagne wit still sparkles, even when mixed with the more modest Cava of Brandreth's own dialogue. That sumptuous solidity of late Victorian London is conjured up with fabulous effortlessness. The plot races along like a carriage pulled by thoroughbreds, with Oscar at the murder scene - a 16-year-old rentboy, his throat cut from ear to ear - within the space of three paragraphs.

Jeu d'esprit it may be, but the idea has substantial foundations in fact. Introducing Arthur Conan Doyle to the plot might seem far-fetched, but it is not: he and Wilde were friends, and met on several occasions. In Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders, Wilde has his own version of the "Baker Street irregulars" - the street urchins who often provided the clues that helped Holmes crack his cases - in the network of rentboys, waiters and doormen whom Wilde tipped with legendary generosity. So far, so enjoyably plausible.