IF YOU were to see this novel on a shelf in a bookstore, the only two upright words on the spine would be "Oscar Wilde". It would actually read, Gyles Brandreth & the Candlelight Murders as if Gyles Brandreth were the protagonist and Oscar Wilde himself were the distinguished author. They sure know who's going to sell this book.

This story, actually entitled Oscar Wilde & the Candlelight Murders, ambitiously tries to bring us up-close-and-personal to Wilde and his legendary wit at the turn of 20th century London, as we follow him around the gas-lit streets, gentlemen's clubs and seedy dens of disrepute. Even as a piece of fiction, we get no insight into the man himself.

This is allegedly a wry and whimsical story of Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle . . . creator of Sherlock Holmes . . . as they smoke cigars and try to figure out who murdered poor 16-year-old Billy Wood, a rent boy (of course, it would have to be! ) found dead by Wilde in a dark, candlelit room of an attic in a house in Cowley Street, Westminster.

Wilde happens upon the body of the boy and . . . claiming he is a friend and mentor to the boy . . .

instead of going to the police, he brings his friend Conan Doyle back to the scene of the crime to prove to him what he saw. But . . . in a twist right out of f actually, take your pick . . . the corpse and candles have now mysteriously (! ) disappeared.

What follows is a plodding, creaking and sorry excuse for a murder mystery. Oscar is the clever sleuth, who has amazing powers of observation that consistently yield theatrical gasps from his admiring friends. With drinks at the Langham Hotel and tea at Simpsons in the Strand, this Wilde comes across like a selfimportant boring old fart.

When the narrator . . . Wilde's friend Robert Sherard . . . meets the protagonists, "Conan Doyle was evidently already under the sorcerer's spell. When Oscar introduced us, Doyle smiled at me with a certain reticence, but barely glanced my way again. He was wholly absorbed in the magic of his master." Sorcerer's spell?

Magic of his master? Oh, brother.

In order to evoke the language of the day, Brandreth mostly drops the use of apostrophes and uses words like "Entirely!" and "Indeed!" and "Enough!" to begin his sentences and . . . hey, presto! . . .

recreates the delicate language of 19th century aristocracy.

Unfortunately, it sounds like a bad piece of historical am-dram in the local town hall.

It's not long before Brandreth starts to hang the dialogue around Wilde's witticisms and, presumably, adds a few of his own too. "Caricature is the tribute that mediocrity pays to genius." And, um, "He will be baffled by the truth. The mediocre always are."

Brandreth's father apparently knew Sherard, Wilde's confidant.

But this doesn't make the guy with the funny jumpers from Countdown somehow destined to write this Sherlock Holmes/Hardy Boys imitation. As any fans of Conan Doyle will tell you, this kind of homage as a tongue-in-cheek literary device already has a lot to answer for.

Wilde died in L'Hotel d'Alsace in Paris at 1.45pm on 30 November, 1900 and, 100 years later, Brandreth and his cronies met in his hotel room. The idea for the book came to Brandreth at that exact moment. (Yet another homage f this time as a tacky marketing tool! ) The spine of this book should actually read, Giles Brandreth & the Cringeworthy Pastiche.