The Bookman's Tale

This novel by Charlie Lovett starts with a mystery and escalates into a thriller. Antiquarian book dealer Peter Byerly has recently lost his beloved wife Amanda to brain cancer. With her, it also feels he has lost his interest in everything else. The book alternates between three time periods and perspectives: the early history of a particular book, the Pandosto, which runs from Shakespeare's time up until present day England; the mid-1980's when Peter met Amanda at college and their subsequent five years of marriage, mostly in America; and present day (mid-1990's) in England. Peter wanders into a used book store and finds tucked into a book a watercolor painting that so eerily resembles his dead wife, he becomes obsessed with finding out who painted it and who the subject of the painting was. In the process he hooks up with Victorian art expert, Liz, and starts to uncover an elaborate plot fueled by generations of enmity between the two families, the Gardners and the Aldersons. At the heart of this story is a book, Pandosto, with margin notes that, if genuine, could settle once and for all whether or not Shakespeare was the real author of all those famous plays. Well written with a great storyline and well-developed characters. A little bit of supernatural in the form of Amanda's ghost keeping an eye on Peter. Well worth the read, especially for those interested in book collecting, Shakespeare, or English literary history in general. A good amount of research went into making this historically accurate--up to a point--which is all summarized in the "Author's Note" at the end.