Interred with Their Bones
By Jennifer Lee Carrell
(Plume, Paperback, 9780452289895, 432pp.)
Publication Date: September 2008
Categories: Mystery & Detective - General
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"A feverishly paced action adventure" (The New York Times) about a long-lost Shakespeare work and a killer who reenacts the Bard's most bloody murders
Jennifer Lee Carrell's highly acclaimed debut novel is a brilliant, breathlessly paced literary adventure. The action begins on the eve of the Globe's production of Hamlet when Shakespeare scholar and theater director Kate Stanley's eccentric mentor Rosalind Howard gives her a mysterious box, claiming to have made a groundbreaking discovery. Before she can reveal it to Kate, the Globe is burned to the ground and Roz is found dead...murdered precisely in the manner of Hamlet's father.
Inside the box Kate finds the first piece in a Shakespearean puzzle, setting her on a deadly, highstakes treasure hunt. From London to Harvard to the American West, Kate races to evade a killer and solve a tantalizing string of clues hidden in the words of Shakespeare, which may unlock one of history's greatest secrets.
Jennifer Lee Carrell is the author of The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox and holds her Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Harvard University as well as other degrees in English Literature from Oxford and Stanford universities. She has also taught at Harvard and directed Shakespeare plays for Harvard's Hyperion Theatre Company. This is her first novel.
1. One of the pervading themes of Interred with Their Bones is the gap between the academic and the practical when it comes to the works of Shakespeare. The great gap between Roz Howard's "ivory tower" approach to Shakespeare and Kate Stanley's need to have the actual hands-on experience of directing a Shakespearean play provides the opening conflict of the novel. When it comes to classic theater, is studying the plays and the playwright enough? Is it important to experience Shakespeare's works in the way the playwright intended, performed before a live audience?
?[A] smart?notable debut literary thriller.?
?USA Today
?This debut mystery kicks off with quite a bang?the author never lets her pace sag as the story?s roots reach back to Shakepeare?s time. High-class fun.?
?Newsweek
?Plot twists worthy of The Da Vinci Code.?
?Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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