Carol Goodman The Sonnet Lover

The Sonnet Lover

Carol Goodman

Ballantine, Jun 2007, $24.95

ISBN: 0345479572

Two decades ago then student Goodman Rose Asher fell in love with Professor Bruno Brunelli while she attended seminars at La Civetta in Tuscany, Italy where he lectured. However, in spite of their heated tryst, he stayed with his wife while she will always have the memory of Italy.

Rose teaches Renaissance poetry at Hudson College when she is invited as a guest professor and movie advisor on a film based on the Dark Lady of Shakespeare's sonnets at La Civetta where Bruno still works. The script was written by Robin Weiss and includes a Shakespeare-like sonnet found in the archives that implies Ginevra de Laura, daughter of a master mosaic artist, was the Dark Lady. However, soon after Rose arrives, Robin dies in what appears to be either a tragic accident or a suicide; the manuscript is missing. Rose refuses to accept her student killed himself while Bruno worries his son might be a killer.

The plausible solution to who the Dark Lady is makes this an intriguing entry in the Rose Asher academic amateur sleuth mysteries (see the GHOST ORCHID). However, the myriad of subplots from college president Mark Abrams to investigating Robin's death and locating the missing sixteenth century manuscript that contains the sonnet to Bruno worrying about his son while considering renewing his romance with Rose somewhat makes the most intriguing element (the Dark Lady identification) not as front and centered as most readers will desire. Still THE SONNET LOVER is a well written whodunit with an intriguing possible resolution to a literary mystery.

Harriet Klausner