From Publishers Weekly
In this perfect blend of mystery, satire and travelogue, Satterthwait ( At Ease with the Dead ) follows Oscar Wilde in his 1882 lecture tour through the American West. Wilde greatly amuses his audiences and Elizabeth McCourt Doe in particular, initiating a torrid (and to the reader, surprising) affair with her. Meanwhile U.S. marshal Bob Grigsby connects a series of murders and eviscerations of prostitutes to the cities where Wilde has delivered his disquisitions and accuses the writer of the crimes. Wilde steers the hard-drinking marshal to the other members of his tour, including an alcoholic reporter, a slick-talking business manager, a sophisticated countess, a frail valet, a retired Prussian officer and even gunslinger John "Doc" Holliday, who has been following the tour. Wilde and Elizabeth narowly escape being killed by cowboys to whom Wilde's wit is no laughing matter, but the identity of the serial killer is not revealed until the harrowing resolution. One more surprise waits in the wings, and its delivery is just as smooth as those that the playwright himself once put to paper.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
More than a whodunit or a Western, Wilde West also qualifies as historical fiction and psychological thriller. Its plot centers on the savage serial murders of red-headed prostitutes. Enter none other than Oscar Wilde, the young, witty, flamboyant British poet who, with his varied entourage, is making a lecture tour of the United States. Because the prostitutes are always slain in the cities Wilde visits, Federal Marshall Grigsby must consider Wilde and his friends as suspects. With point of view shifting between the melancholy, alcoholic Grigsby and the inspired, lusty, ever-jesting Wilde, as well as occasional scary plunges into the dark mind of the unknown killer, tension runs high. Satterthwait, who also brought Lizzie Borden to life in Dear Lizzie (St. Martin's, 1989), more than does justice to his inspired choice of Wilde as a protagonist. Sharp writing; lively fiction.
- Keddy Ann Outlaw, Harris Cty. P.L., Houston
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Keddy Ann Outlaw, Harris Cty. P.L., Houston
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
