Jennifer Lee Carrell Interred with Their Bones

Interred with Their Bones

Jennifer Lee Carrell

Dutton, Sep 2007, $25.95

ISBN: 9780525949701

In 2004 at London's renovated Globe Theater Katharine Stanley directs a production of Hamlet. Attending is her friend Harvard Shakespearean Professor Rosalind Howard who gives Katharine a small gold-wrapped box before the production.

That same evening, a fire breaks out at the Globe; soon after it is put out, Roz is found dead in the same way that Hamlet's father was killed. Kate is stunned by her friend's death and the fire, but is over the edge with the gift, a Victorian mourning brooch decorated with flowers mindful of Ophelia. Needing to know the truth, Kate investigates traveling on a trek across the Atlantic in which a killer accompanies her murdering potential witnesses and attempting to add Kate to the list.

INTERRED WITH BONES is one of the best thrillers of the year as the plausible twists keep coming. Kate is terrific as the prime character struggling with her friend's death and the eerie related symbolism to Shakespeare that makes her feel her life has turned into a tragedy with no third act comic relief. As she travels across the pond to Arizona and more, Kate begins to learn what the Holy Grail is: a lost Shakespearean play. Readers will enjoy this entertaining amateur sleuth in which the Bard's legacy is proving deadly.

Harriet Klausner