Some books have stories outside their own stories…personal stories. My wife got me a copy of this for my birthday some 19 years ago (along with an autographed copy of another Hawke book). I read a few pages, and then it sat on my nightstand for the next five years until we moved from Korea back to he states, and then in our library until it was lost with so many other books to soot and smoke damage from a fire in 2013. Hawke is one of a few authors as fall back on when I feel “reader’s block” creeping up on me, but this short series isn’t one of my “go to” books… mainly because I hadn’t gotten back to it after all these years. And now the error of that mystery has been corrected. It took more than half of the book before I got engaged, but I did and I did enjoy it.

Hawke says in his afterward that some might think him cheeky (paraphrased) for presuming to write about Shakespeare as a fictional character, but I agree with him that people take Shakespeare too seriously (again, paraphrasing). I don’t buy the analysis of so many… yes, so many who have based their academic careers on such analysis. I liked Hawke’s take on Shakespeare:

He knew that his medium was an ephemeral one and he regarded it accordingly. He wrote his works to be performed, not deconstructed in a college classroom or analyzed with pathological precision for every possible nuance and interpretation. He understood, without a doubt, that his was a collaborative medium, that actors would bring their own contributions to the table, that plays were a dynamic group effort of the entire company, not a showcase for an individual writer's talent and/or ego.
Students who are forced to sit through agonizing lectures by monotonous professors who drone on and on about iambic pentameter and heroic couplets never truly learn to appreciate the Bard, and more's the pity, because Shakespeare himself would have been aghast to learn that his words were putting young captive audiences to sleep. He wanted, more than anything, to make them laugh, or weep, or rage ... to make them feel, for that was why Elizabethan audiences went to the theatre.

IMO, Shakespeare is far better seen and heard than read.

Okay, probably not just my opinion. ( )

Symington "Tuck" Smythe is traveling to London to try to become an actor. Along the way he teams up with William Shakespeare who is traveling to London to try to become a play write. They get work as ostlers and soon become involved with the plight of Elizabeth Darcie who is engaged to a man she does not wish to marry. There isn't much of a mystery in this book. I did like the setup of the team of Smythe and Shakespeare and I will be looking for more books in this series. ( )

I picked this up after reading "Will of the World", an excellent book about Shakespeare's life. I wanted to be immersed again in Elizabethan life and this mystery seemed like an excellent way to accomplish that.

Unfortunately, this book was not very interesting. The characters were bland and Hawke's attempts to shock the reader with drunk Shakespeare, for example, fall flat. Fiona Buckley and Leonard Tourney write mysteries that cover simliar territory much better. ( )

It's a fun, quick read. ( )

not sure if I'll get this one again.... ( )