A fire destroys a New York City rare bookstore—and reveals clues to a treasure worth killing for. . . . A disgraced scholar is found tortured to death. . . . And those pursuing the most valuable literary find in history are about to cross from the harmless mundane into inescapable nightmare.From the acclaimed, bestselling author of Tropic of Night comes a breathtaking thriller that twists, … that twists, shocks, and surprises at every turn as it crisscrosses centuries, from the glaring violence of today into the dark shadows of truth and lies surrounding the greatest writer the world has ever known.
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This book answers the question…”What if someone found an previously unknown Shakespeare manuscript.” The story is told by several different characters starting with the “end of the story” then flashing back to events that have brought the character to that point. I alternated between the audio book and the Kindle book. The reader for the …
Brilliant Shakespearean literary thriller.
Unless you have read other Michael Gruber books, you have not read a book like this before. No, wait. Regardless whether or not you have read Gruber, this one’s totally original. No need to summarize the plot. You want something very entertaining and different? Read this.
What if your day at work has turned into your worst nightmare, and out of the ashes of that terrible day you discover you’ve found a clue to the location of an unknown play by Shakespeare? Is this your silver lining? What would a Shakespeare scholar do to find an entire play in the Bard’s hand? Whom would a criminal mastermind kill to steal it? …
Michael Gruber’s books are magical. This one is no exception.
Great plot, interesting romantic sub-plots, magnificent character depiction, including Shakespeare the imaginative dramatist and hard-nosed businessman, and a hugely sympathetic main character revealed entirely through his deathbed letters from the 16th century.
This is another novel that will surprise a reader. Stay with the text which, at times, seems tedious; stay with the shifts in time. The ending makes the experience worth the time.
Unnecessarily long (the medieval chapters could have been much shorter and were tedious to read; I wound up skipping them and missed nothing).
I enjoyed the personal, confessional-but-in-your-face style of the main character, combined with the mystery of the scam (or WAS it a scam?) of possibly the most valuable manuscript to come to light in modern times.
The characters were unique, and it was difficult to decipher (inside joke) who was who, and which side they were playing.
There were …
. Michael Grubar is very, very talented & this book is one of his best. Notable for eschewing supernatural themes that make some of his books less fulfilling for me. Here he entangles ordinary people in an extraordinary but somewhat realistic situation. The plot kept me undecided to the end. The author is a truly intelligent but low-brow …
Engaging start to finish.
Hard to read. Couldn’t get into it
Were I heterosexual I might be fascinated by detailed descriptions of female physiques. Or by endless, preposterous sex scenes.
An “it could happen” kind of plot, great characters, and lively action. One of the best I’ve read in a while.
I actually liked this book very much.
interestingly convoluted
Any book by Michael Gruber is a good ‘un.