'Highly entertaining' Sunday Times

In the last decade of Elizabeth I's reign, Nick Revill, an aspiring young actor, comes to London seeking fame and fortune. Once there he gains employment with the Chamberlain's Men.

Thrown out of his digs over an unfortunate accident, Nick is offered lodgings at a wealthy Thameside mansion by a black-clad youth whose father has just died and whose mother has remarried his uncle. Pondering on the similarities between the young man's story and William Shakespeare's newest tragedy, Hamlet, Nick is charged with the task of finding out whether foul play was involved in the death of the old man and hasty remarriage of his young, lusty wife.

As Nick works his way ever closer to the truth, the finger of suspicion begins to point to his enigmatic employer Mr William Shakespeare - actor, author and shareholder in the Chamberlain's Men . . .

The first gripping historical mystery in the Nick Revill series, set in the bustling theatrical world of William Shakespeare.

Praise for Philip Gooden:

'Another clever criminal plunge into history' Guardian

'The witty narrative, laced with puns and word play so popular in this period, makes this an enjoyable racy tale' Sunday Telegraph

'The book has much in common with the film Shakespeare in Love - full of colourful characters . . . but the book has an underlying darkness' Crime Time

'Historical mystery fans are in for a treat' Publishers Weekly

The witty narrative, laced with puns and word play so popular in the period, makes this an enjoyable racy tale. - Sunday Telegraph.

PHILIP GOODEN is a graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford. He writes books about language as well as historical crime novels. The former include Who's Whose? A No-Nonsense Guide to Easily-Confused Words, The Story of English, and (as co-author) Idiomantics and The Word at War. He has been nominated for a CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award.