One doesn’t need to be a buff of the Bard to love this well-told tale.
Modern-day and Shakespearean-era murders align in this mystery by Shakespeare scholar Wharton.
The story opens in 1616 with Shakespeare lying upon his deathbed as a hooded and cloaked visitor approaches his bedside, leaving the reader to guess at his/her identity. The author then flashes back 22 years, when a young man and future lord, William Herbert, witnesses an experiment: an attempt by an alchemist to create the Philosopher’s Stone. It’s here that Herbert learns of the clandestine Order of the Rose Cross and the suspiciously failed endeavor by the group to colonize the New World. Among those gathered in the laboratory is Herbert’s mother, who advises him that the Order’s secrecy is imperative. Years later, Shakespeare is called on by a powerful lord to spy upon Herbert. Soon after, Herbert hears the words “rose” and “cross” in the dialogue of one of Shakespeare’s plays and assumes Shakespeare has knowledge about the secret order, as well as the lost colony. Though Shakespeare is unwitting, his interest is piqued; he soon risks life and limb to solve the mystery, and the narrative shifts into a complex whodunit. Many scenes contain sumptuous descriptions and smart dialogue. Alternating with the Shakespeare tale is an equally intriguing mystery, this one set in the present day. Charles Morgan is a divorced, disengaged composition teacher at a private college. Lionel Bunce, who is Morgan’s faculty mentor, as well as a Shakespeare expert, reveals to Morgan that he is on the brink of solving a mystery of historic proportions involving Shakespeare and “issues of state,” but he needs just one more piece to complete the puzzle. He reveals that he’s dying and makes Morgan promise that he will complete his work. But Morgan discovers that solving a centuries-old mystery is a hazardous gig; a man claiming to be a co-worker of Bunce asks for access to his writings and books. Morgan realizes that there is indeed a treasure hidden somewhere in Bunce’s dusty documents and prized books. Morgan races to unravel the mystery as he runs for his life. The ending comes to a clever full circle. With perfect pacing, the story alternates between the two engaging plotlines, and readers will find themselves turning pages at full tilt. Deliciously multifaceted, the novel is carefully constructed with a cast of unique and well-crafted characters.
One doesn’t need to be a buff of the Bard to love this well-told tale.Pub Date: July 31, 2012
ISBN: 9781468157178
Page Count: 422
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
A virtuoso performance from Li. Brava!
“What can a miserable man and a miserable woman do for each other?” Li illustrates how two Romantic era musicians navigated such a relationship.
An unusually placed coda serves as a prelude, not a conclusion, to Li’s recreation of the tumultuous lives of musicians Adelaide Percheron and John Field. Adelaide, an Indian-born orphan of mixed racial heritage, has just learned of the death of her estranged husband, John—credited with the development of the nocturne as a musical form—after years of living separately and pursuing their individual artistic passions. Following that intriguing introduction is an insightful account of the indirect paths each took to survive challenging early years and to advance in the world of music. John was born in Dublin in 1782 into a family of Irish musicians who invested heavily in his musical training, hoping to produce “the next Mozart” despite the talented boy’s sensitive and dreamy nature. The precocious and preternaturally self-possessed Adelaide learns the rudiments of the pianoforte from a governess and strategic life lessons from her grandmother. Eventually, she sets out from Pondicherry for the broader opportunities she believes await her in her father’s native France. Against a background of social upheaval across Europe due to revolutions and Napoleon’s rising power, the two grow and mature in musicality and pursue the lives they’ve imagined for themselves. John and Adelaide have just met, in 1807 Moscow, as this volume ends, leaving the door open for Li to explore their relationship in future installments. Peppered with interludes and glances into the future, Li’s novel explores both the modern commodification of music and the value of art as a means of ensuring immortality, a hedge against the “night” that falls when a life ends. Her keen psychological study of the musicians and their muses delivers the themes elegantly.
A virtuoso performance from Li. Brava!Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9780374613051
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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