MUCH ADO ABOUT MURDER

With the plague shutting down all the theaters in London, stage manager and would-be playwright Will Shakespeare and his pal Tuck Smythe, the worst actor but the best stagehand in the Queen’s Men, must scrounge for other income. Will pens sonnets to order for wealthy young nobles; brawny Tuck finds work with a local smithy. While they’re recuperating from their toils over tankards of ale served by charming Molly, the tavern wench at the Toad & Badger, Ben Dickens, a former player, armorer’s apprentice, soldier of fortune, and glib hustler, appears with his pal Corwin, a talented goldsmith who’s fallen in love with Hera, the daughter of wealthy Genoan ship trader Master Leonardo, just retired from the sea and settled in Britain. Alas, Hera’s reputation is besmirched, Corwin breaks off their engagement, and worse yet, Leonardo is murdered and his austerely appointed house ransacked. Was the wealthy Genoan not really wealthy at all? And rich or poor, who killed him? When Corwin stands accused, Will, Tuck, and Ben rush to his defense, which entails run-ins with those London lowlifes the Steady Boys; a meeting or two with Moll Cutpurse, a leader of the Thieves’ Guild; and some fancy acting by members of their idle players’ troupe.

Half the tale is told before Will and Tuck have a crime to solve, but they keep themselves busy scratching fleas and cussing each other out (“You soused goose!” “You carrion kite!”). An amiable glimpse of Elizabethan skullduggery, if not quite as breezy as its predecessors (The Slaying of the Shrew, 2001, etc.).