A Woman of Mystery

I put this book on my queue courtesy of Carrie at Mommy Brain. Interred with Their Bones is an amazing first novel from Jennifer Lee Carrell, an Ivy League English lit. scholar whose first book was about the history of smallpox. Except for the fact that I am in the middle of a reading willpower exercise, I wouldn’t have put it down for a minute!

(I have written in my other blog about the challenges of being a reading addict; the willpower exercise is an effort (hopefully to be more of a long-term habit) not to let reading subsume my entire life – silly, I know! – but instead maintain balance with pesky details like dishes, laundry, sleep, children… So it did take me two whole days to string together the necessary minutes to finish the book!)

This mystery takes its grounding in two pieces of Shakespearean scholarship: an historically documented but missing play (Cardenio); and the lively debate around whether the glovemaker’s son from Stratford is the true author of the incredible body of work given his name. The protagonist is a Harvard Shakespeare scholar turned director, Kate Stanley, who is drawn into a globe-crossing chase of mayhem, murder, and Shakespeareana by her mentor.

This is an intellectual mystery. There is an extraordinary level of intricacy throughout, and the author deftly avoids turning that into a slog through a mire of words. The amount of attention given to the plot does result in the characters being less deeply formed than I would have wished, but I am a character-driven reader and I still felt good resonance with them. Carrell creates an evocative environment for the story as well, taking us on a three-dimensional journey through locales such as the renovated Globe Theatre in London; the Widener Library at Harvard; and the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, to name just a few.

As a point of reference, this book had a similar feel to the best-seller The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, which I also very much enjoyed (and which comparison is common in reviews of the book). Not being Catholic, or even religious, I had no problem with Brown’s adaptation of some of the wilder theories of Christianity into his book; other readers might appreciate the greater historical authenticity of Interred with Their Bones. All in all, a wonderful read, highly recommended by me, your guide – a solid A, 4.5 of 5 stars, etc., etc. Enjoy!