"Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't." (The Shakespeare Secret - J.L. Carrell)

Member Name: Teena2003

Product:	The Shakespeare Secret - J.L. Carrell
Date:	18/02/08 (157 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: easy read, mixes of some fact and a lot of fiction, fun even for people not into the Bard

Disadvantages: possibly a bit too dry for some, lot of fact thrown in, "another conspiracy"

Katharine "Kate" Stanley is in London to direct Hamlet at the Globe Theatre when she receives a visit from her old university mentor Rosalind "Roz" Howard who hands her a package and tells her that "if you open it, you must follow where it leads..." A fire destroying part of the new Globe Theatre leaves behind a victim, Rosalind, mirroring the burning of the original Globe almost 400 years earlier to the day where the fire also left one person dead.

Fleeing from the prying eyes and inquisitive mind of DCI Sinclair of the London Met Police, Kate decides to solve the riddle left by Roz so close to her death, and ultimately find out who killed her.

Aided by Sir Henry Lee, Shakespearean actor at The Globe she heads to Harvard University in Cambridge/USA, where Roz was professor and where she herself studied to start the search for whatever her friend had found out. Making sure that she is not on her own on the quest, it appears that Roz had instructed her nephew Ben, a security expert, to keep and eye on Kate.

Kate and Ben start unravelling some intriguing facts about Shakespeare, who he was, theories about his plays and in particular Shakespeare's lost plays and zig zagging across the USA, at the same time, the body count starts rising fast. The killer is modelling his (or maybe her) murders on Shakespeare's plays. Both Kate and Ben must stay ahead of the killer and figure out what Roz wanted to tell Kate by giving her the present in the first place.



I was in two minds when I first bought the book. The quote from Publishers Weekly 'plot twists worthy of The Da Vinci Code' didn't instil confidence in the book either. After all, Dan Brown wrote a very wordy book based on some hokum ideas and tried to pass them off as truth - and was well and truly slated for it.

I'm not keen on Shakespeare after 'Macbeth' was forced on me at school (despite the whole class voting for 'Midsummer Night's Dream'). I've never really recovered and avoid 'the bard' whenever I can. The idea about a secret to do with Shakespeare woke my curiosity. I'm all for a good conspiracy theory, in particular when there is so much out in the open already. After all, the question about who Shakespeare was is not a new one.

The authorship debate didn't pass me by without thinking 'conspiracy' and a lot of the book covers the different theories. Real people and events are interwoven with the fictional characters while they are trying to work out who the murder is and what Rosalind had found out that made it worth killing people over. I enjoyed reading about the different theories without having to actually pick up a thesis or other book written by an expert that is dry as a bone and bores the living daylights out of ordinary people.

L J Carrell was not an author I had heard of before. It appears she went down the J K Rowling route, only using her initials instead of her first name, Jennifer Lee. I don't really care if a book is written by a man or woman as long as it's enjoyable. And I must say, despite my initial reservations and getting over the fact that it was written in first person, Katharine (Kate) is telling the story from her view, I did very much enjoy it, in a reading at lunchtime, in the bath and on the bus kind of way. It's not a big literary masterpiece but it is an interesting book to read nonetheless.

The book itself is about 480 pages (plus some author's notes at the end). A nice touch is the fact that it is divided into acts, just like a play, with the first page introducing the 'dramatis personae' (cast members or simply, people appearing in the story) in order of appearance, like you would find in theatre programmes. There's no need to study the list, just flick back when someone new turns up and read what the list tells you about it.

The book is divided into five acts where prologue and interludes take the reader back to Shakespearean times, telling more about things that happened (or might have happened) when Shakespeare was alive. I actually quite like that idea, in particular when you still get normal chapters, too.

Most of the story takes place in the USA, from Harvard in Cambridge (Boston), Utah, New Mexico and Washington DC. Very few chapters actually take place in England and a quick stop over in Spain is thrown in for good measure.

At no time did I find the book rushed. In the end I was quite satisfied that I had worked out who the killer was (kind of) despite the many red herrings along the way. But there was still a surprise I hadn't expected. I didn't quite mind that the reasons behind the killers rampage were a little strange and had not really that much to do with the lost plays or the first folio what was talked about. There are many reasons why people kill and after all, it was only a story that was meant to entertain.

I wouldn't go so far as to compare it to Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, the only similarity probably being the conspiracy surrounding the authorship. But at least that's not as hotly talked about as anything to do with the Holy Grail. Not even this book will have people rushing to find out more about the ins and outs of Shakespeare and his plays.

But it did something for me. After my decades long dislike for Shakespeare I'm actually considering going down to the new Globe Theatre and watch a play - or maybe even rent a DVD with a Shakespeare play on it.


Published by Sphere
Paperback available at all good book stores, supermarkets and online
RRP £6.99 (I bought my at Tesco for £4.00 - or rather £3.50 on a buy two books for £7.00 offer)

Summary: modern serial killer, ancient secret