Interred with Their Bones

Starred review from July 16, 2007
Plot twists worthy of The Da Vinci Code
dominate this agile first novel from Carrell (The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox
), a thriller involving a lost Shakespeare play, The History of Cardenio
. On a June day in 2004, at London’s rebuilt Globe theater, Rosalind Howard, “flamboyantly eccentric Harvard Professor of Shakespeare,” gives her friend Katharine Stanley, who’s directing a production of Hamlet
at the Globe, a small gold-wrapped box. That evening, a fire damages the Globe, where Roz is found murdered in the same manner as Hamlet’s father. Roz’s mysterious gift, which contains a Victorian mourning brooch decorated with flowers associated with Ophelia, propels Kate on a wild and wide-ranging quest that takes her to Utah; Arizona; Washington, D.C.; and back to London. Every step of the way, as the bodies pile up, Kate narrowly escapes becoming the next murder victim. From Shakespeare conferences to desert mines, from the present to the past, this spirited and action-packed novel delivers constant excitement. Foreign rights sold in 20 countries.

Starred review from August 1, 2007
Carrell ("The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox"), a Harvard Ph.D. and Shakespeare specialist, crafts an exciting debut literary thriller. Kate Shelton left academe to direct Shakespeare plays, and as she rehearses "Hamlet" at London's new Globe Theatre, her old adviser, Roz, shows up with a mysterious gift and the admonition to "follow where it leads." Within hours, the Globe is burning and Roz is found dead, her body staged to mimic the murder of Hamlet's father. Bodies start to pile up, each re-creating another Shakespeare moment, as Kate follows Roz's clues from Harvard's Widener Library to the American Southwest. Can she find the manuscript of the lost play "Cardenio", and will it reveal whether Shakespeare really wrote Shakespeare? Kate's use of her academic skills to decode letters and other historical artifacts will appeal to "Da Vinci Code" fans, the fast-paced globe-trotting action to Robert Ludlum readers, and the exploration of the Shakespeare mysteries to English majors everywhere. Highly recommended for all popular fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 5/1/07.]Jessica Moyer, Univ. of Minnesota Coll. of Education & Human Development, Minneapolis

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 29, 2007
It’s not McNenny’s fault that Carrell’s thriller, hinging on the burning of the Globe Theater in 1613, turns out to be much ado about nothing. McNenny reads at a heart-thumping pace, which is perfect for Kate Stanley, a theater director and former scholar, who is both chasing the past and being pursued by killers in the present. McNenny’s performance gives Kate the right combination of brainy sleuthing and brainless commitment to a dangerous investigation. She does not fare as well with the other characters, especially the men. In particular, a London inspector in charge of the murder case of Kate’s Harvard mentor sounds Indian or Pakistani, even though he is from the Caribbean. Listeners will ignore the peccadilloes as they are caught up in Kate’s breathless trips from London to Cambridge and even the West Coast. For those interested in this popular genre of Shakespeare revised and revisited, the catchy plot and McNenny’s exuberant performance are both gripping and vastly entertaining. Simultaneous release with the Dutton hardcover (Reviews, July 16).