As former MP Giles Brandreth prepares to visit Harrogate next month for a crime writers’ festival, he reveals to Steve Pratt his fascination with literary genius Oscar Wilde.

FORMER MP, writer and broadcaster Giles Brandreth is on the other end of the phone, making the most extraordinary noises. There is much oohing, aahing, heavy breathing and screaming. It would be easy to get the wrong idea. Brandreth himself says he must sound like heis in the middle of a erotic frenzy.

What’s actually happening is simple enough – he is being interviewed and getting out of a car at the same time. The door providing his exit is up against a wall, so he can barely squeeze out. Hence the noises. “I don’t think I can get out of the car,” he says. “I’m trying to do two things at once which is dangerous because I’m not a woman.”

He’s on assignment for BBC1’s The One Show, filming a report on the psychology of what makes someone want to be an MP. Our conversation takes place amid the expenses scandal, although Brandreth is careful not to express an opinion, apart from saying the expenses of being a BBC reporter are more modest.

“I’m walking the street” – he’s out of the car and on foot by now with barely a break in the conversation – “and can’t even get a capaccino”.

He says it loudly in the hope the director will take pity and provide a drink.

He will say that being an MP was a “wonderful experience” and “I loved it”. Walking the corridors of power has been helpful in his other occupation, writing a series of murder mysteries in which Oscar Wilde turns detective.

The third, Oscar Wilde And The Dead Man’s Smile, was published last month and, next month, Brandreth will join other murderinclined writers in Harrogate for the annual Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writers’ Festival.

He explains that he’s relatively new to crimewriting.

“What happened was I used to be an MP and then the people spoke and I had to find something else to do,” he says.

“I wrote a book about the Queen and Charles, and was offered lots of money to write a book about Diana. I said what I’d really like to do is write a murder mystery. I was brought up on Agatha Christie and thought, ‘I’m going to write one of those’.”

The plot thickened because he happened to be reading an autobiography of “my proud hero” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, at the time. From that, he discovered that Wilde and Doyle were friends.

“It seems such an unlikely conjunction of people that I thought I can do something with this,” he says.

He has other Wilde connections. His old headmaster at Bedales had known the writer.

“I met when I was 13 and he was 97. He had been a friend of Oscar Wilde although, as I was young, he never talked about the scandal. I was introduced to a young man who was a family man, father and husband, a very generous and amusing man,” recalls Brandreth.

He asked his elderly mentor if Wilde had ever given him any advice. “Never commit murder,” came the reply.

The period of the late 1800s fascinates Brandreth, who imagines it must have been a fantastic time to be living and quite extraordinary with the fog of London.

His Wilde books are peppered with real people, including Conan Doyle, actress Sarah Bernhardt and showman P T Barnum.

Did I know, he asks, that Wilde actually met Jumbo the elephant, the star of Barnum’s circus show?

He’s pleased to be heading for Harrogate and meeting fellow crime novelists as he’s trying to write in the tradition of the classic English murder mystery. Having the festival take place in the very hotel from which Agatha Christie did her famous vanishing trick adds to the excitement.

He’s signed up to do another three Wilde books, and has outlines for 12 ready.

Coming up with the plots isn’t a problem.

“I’m soaked in the story and the period, and I’m quite methodical and go to all the locations,” he says.

“The joy of Oscar Wilde is that he led this double life. He’s a wonderful hero to have because he’s a flawed personality and flaws are very interesting. He walked with princes and common prostitutes.

“The period is before we got DNA and real development of fingerprints. It’s the perfect period for intelligent detective work without mechanics. In terms of death, there are some quite unusual ones, but it’s difficult to find new ways of killing people.”

As well as writing, he has a new BBC-TV quiz show, Knowitalls, coming up as well as his One Show reporting. But, for the present, he’s happy to be known as a murder mystery writer.

“I like to do something different every seven years and this is where I am. It may even last longer. Who knows?”

■ Oscar Wilde And The Dead Man’s Smile, published by John Murray, £14.99 hardback

■ Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival is at the Crown Hotel, Harrogate, from July 23 to 26.

Details at harrogate-festival.org.uk/crime Accommodation and weekend rover ticket packages from 01423-562303. Individual tickets and day passes from 0845-1308840.

Fifth Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Awards

THERE’S no mystery whodunit when it comes to the winner of the Crime Novel of the Year. Readers are the guilty parties as the outcome is decided by public vote.

Previous winners include Val McDermid, Mark Billingham, Allan Guthrie and Stef Penney last year for The Tenderness Of Wolves.

The shortlist, announced today, is: Death Message, Mark Billingham; The Accident Man, Tom Cain; Bad Luck And Trouble, Lee Child; Gone To Ground, John Harvey; Ritual, Mo Hayder; Garden Of Evil, David Hewson; A Cure For All Diseases, Reginald Hill; The Colour Of Blood, Declan Hughes; Dead Man’s Footsteps, Peter James; Broken Skin, Stuart MacBride; Beneath The Bleeding, Val McDermid; Exit Music, Ian Rankin; Friend Of The Devil, Peter Robinson; Savage Moon, Chris Simms.

The winner takes home £3,000 and a handmade Theakstons Old Peculier Cask made by the last cooper in England.

The 14 shortlisted books will be on special offer at Asda from July 7-27, with two books for £7. Vote for the winner at theakstons.co.uk. Closing date is July 23.