Interred with Their Bones

I was an English Lit major - my love was Elizabethan England. My great love was and is William Shakespeare. When I saw there was a book about a long lost play of Shakespeare, I grabbed it. It is delightful. It is the first book of fiction by Jennifer Lee Carrell. And it's fantastic. More turns than DaVinci Code, more twists, turns, feint and double feints and you will end the book very satisfied, but exhausted - because you become part of this book, and it holds you until the end. A young woman is given a box by a former mentor - saying she has made a great discovery - and they plan to meet later that night - but the mentor is murdered, and the modern Globe is set afire! When Kate Stanley opens the box, she sees it is a Victorian mourning pin. The pin has dried flowers - the same flowers mad Ophelia was talking about in Hamlet....and the clues start - Kate finds there may truly be a long lost script of Shakespeare's and is off on the hunt - it takes her and her companions all over - from Stratford Upon Avon, to Washington, to Harvard, and to the American West! The characters are delightful - and I kept picturing Peter O'Toole as the famed actor, Sir Harry Lee - all of the characters were brought to life and it is amazing to see this puzzle, its twist and turns unfold. "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones..." That quote features greatly in this book. You will love this read.

This book is really fun, smart, thrilling, and ultimately satisfying. What an absolutely painless way to learn a wealth about Shakespeare, and even if that isn't your objective you'll love this book. It is just a great story well told.

If you are a Shakespeare lover, you will be absolutely seduced by the quest for a lost play. Even if you are not, the adventure and appeal of this story might send you back to the bookstore to buy Hamlet immediately after you finish it! The other reviews offer more plot detail, but I will say that while this book can't possibly escape comparisons to the Da Vinci Code, this is so much better written (without the silly withheld information or artificial cliffhangers). The novel is loaded with thoughtful discussions of the various mysteries about Shakespeare, but they never get in the way of a steadily moving plot that only gets better and better as the novel goes on. I read it while traveling, and never has a plane flight gone so fast. I highly recommend it and will be buying it for all my friends for Christmas.

Interred with Their Bones by Jennifer Lee Carrell is the story of the quest for a lost Shakespearean manuscript and the danger that hides around every corner. Kate Stanley is an expert in occult (knowledge hidden within the texts, not supernatural) Shakespeare who is about to direct Hamlet at the newly built Globe Theater in London. But things quickly take a twist for the strange when her mentor, Roz, shows up with a gift and mysterious message for Kate, then turns up dead at the theater, killed in the manner of Hamlet's father. Kate opens the gift to find a brooch and a message alluding to a lost work of Shakespeare. As she traces Roz's steps to find it, she's hunted and betrayed at every turn. I love books like this! Carrell packs in action, suspense, a hint of romance, and a lot of Shakespeare and Elizabethan trivia making the book a joy to read with every turn of the page. Kate can't quite figure out who to trust and neither can the reader as she flies from England to the US to Spain and back. Carrell's love for The Bard shines through on every page while bringing up questions as to the authorship of the works he's been given credit for. She throws in political machinations from Elizabeth's court and a few scandals, and she weaves fact and fiction so cleverly together, it's nearly impossible to sort them out. (I spent part of the book with Wikipedia open). But God bless her, Carrell also takes the time in length author's notes to separate fact from fiction while still leaving plenty of mystery. The writing and characters are solid. I've read comparisons of this to The DaVinci Code; Dan Brown only wishes his books were this good!