Description:

A historical novel featuring Oscar Wilde and his decadent friends in Dieppe, 1897... May 1897. A suicidal Wilde, released from two years in prison, arrives in Dieppe, Normandy, under the assumed name of Sebastian Melmoth. On the same ferry is Captain Drake Hastings, sent by British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury, ostensibly to “protect national interests”, and to investigate conspiracies amongst the large British ex-pat community in Dieppe. But there's worse beneath the skin of the chic resort than mere political intrigue: against a “Naughty Nineties” backdrop of disease and drugs, of vice and violence, a serial killer appears to be responsible for the abductions and murders of several English prostitutes working in the town, as well as the detectives sent by mysterious third parties. Crimes which echo those of the Whitechapel (Ripper) murders of 1888, and others Hastings recalls from his tour of duty in India