The Merchant of Vengeance (Shakespeare Mystery) [Hardcover]

Simon Hawke (Author)

Book Description

Series: Shakespeare Mystery | Publication Date: December 1, 2003

Will, the fledgling playwright and poet, and Tuck, the would-be actor and rest-of-the-time ostler, have been enjoying their lives on and behind the stage...if only it wasn't for the occasional interruptions: plague, the closing of the theater for reasons of law or finance, and the occasional murder.

As luck would have it, the dramatic twosome must once again play detective in a case that involves the fates of those near and dear to their hearts as well as certain hoped-to- have-been--forgotten family members
.
Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta is all the rage on the London stage, and the young bard wishes to rise to the competition. With companion Tuck at his side, Will makes a sojourn for research purposes into the Elizabethan underworld, where contracts are blood bonds and the quality of mercy is stretched to its very limits. He becomes embroiled in a tangle of unlucky young lovers, anti-Semitism, and rogue justice.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Hawke's solid fourth entry in his somewhat discursive series about ostler Tuck Smythe and young Will Shakespeare (after 2002's Much Ado About Murder), Will wants to write a better play than Kit Marlowe's Jew of Malta, but he has never met a Jew (nor has almost anyone else in late 16th-century England, for they were expelled 300 years earlier). When Will and Tuck question their best-traveled friend, Ben Dickens, about Jews, they learn that a tailor's promising career and imminent marriage have been shattered by his prospective father-in-law's discovery that the young man's mother was a Jew. Tuck's suggestion that the couple elope determines the course of the rest of the tragic story, which roughly parallels the plot of The Merchant of Venice. The author nicely evokes Elizabethan London: the wherrymen who supply the equivalent of taxi service along the Thames; Paul's Walk, the nave of the old St. Paul's church, which has become a place for assignations and booksellers; and the highly organized criminal underworld, where justice is meted out without appeal and Will finds himself defending a man accused of murder. Hawke does a better job of drawing his male characters than his female ones, but he provides all his principals with enough depth for readers to care about their fate. Fans should look forward to further adventures as Will develops as a playwright.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Hawke's fourth Shakespeare and Smythe mystery offers more of the same, and that's great news. Unlike so many dabblers in history and mystery, Hawke blends fact and fiction beautifully: information flows naturally out of the plot, and his novels are devoid of those awkward chunks of exposition that many writers shove into a story in order to get vital information to the reader. And his premise is pretty neat, too: the heroes are two amateur sleuths, hopeful actor Symington Smythe and a young playwright named Will Shakespeare. This time out the duo encounters anti-Semites, armorers (they make body armor for knights), and a series of events that bears a strange similarity to a certain play (see the pun in the title). Effectively mixing mystery and Shakespearean scholarship (Hawke offers a new and thought-provoking explanation for the writing of that certain play), the novel works on every level. This series deserves more attention among historical mystery readers, and this one may well be the one to deliver it. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Forge Books; 1st edition (December 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765304260
• ISBN-13: 978-0765304261
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #857,357 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful depiction of a young William Shakespeare., July 2, 2004

By 

S. Schwartz "romonko" (alberta canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Merchant of Vengeance (Shakespeare Mystery) (Hardcover)

Hawke writes his Shakespearean mystery series like a Shakespearean scholar. There are enough similarites in the plot, characters and language to hearken back to the play that the book is based from. In this case, The Merchant of Venice. In this book we see Will and Tuck embroiled in a family squabble that turns out to result in the death of a young journeyman tailor. As it turns out the young tailor is the son of the head of the Crime Guild, and because of that Tuck and Will are thrown smack in the middle of a vengeance ploy. As in the Merchant of Venice, even anti-Semitism is made a part of the plot of the book. This, the same as the other books in this series is a good fun mystery with lots of sparkling dialogue to keep things interesting.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Revenge...And Then Some, December 12, 2005

By 

R. Chaffey "beckahi" (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Merchant of Vengeance (Shakespeare Mystery) (Hardcover)

The fourth book in the Shakespeare and Smythe Mystery series by Simon Hawke, "The Merchant of Vengeance" adds to the promise that the earlier three works in the series set in motion. Loosely based on "The Merchant of Venice" Hawke weaves his tale of murder and intrigue around and about the life of William Shakespeare and his trusty companion and fellow aspiring thespian Tuck Smythe. As usual, the pair find themselves ensconced in a mystery partly of their own making, with no choice but to find a way out.

The story begins when Portia Mayhew's enagement to Thomas Locke is canceled by her father, solely due to the fact that Thomas's mother was a Jewess and he is therefore a Jew by heritage. The couple is counseled to elope, but Thomas is found dead on the very day he receives this advice. His murder brings Portia's father into question, and has Thomas's father "Shy" Locke seeking vengeance against the murderer. There ensues a trial by the guild of thieves who rule the Elizabethean underworld, with Shakespeare playing lawyer to clear Henry Mayhew of a murder he didn't commit. But who else had a motive to commit such an act?

Hawke has done a fine job with weaving these mysteries around Shakespeare's life and threading some of his greatest lines ever into the conversations throughout the novel. At times the writing is heavy handed; it tries too hard to capture the slang expressions of the time and often repeats the same thoughts, if only in a different 'turn of phrase'. But for Shakespeare and mystery fans, these books are a delightful escape into the world that Shakespeare lived in and created. Hawke has always acknowledged that he is not scholar on Shakespeare, but the research and imagining he has done has breathed new life into some of the bard's best-loved works.

4.0 out of 5 stars A smart and humorous Elizabethan mystery, May 22, 2004

By 

Edward Alexander Gerster "miamibooks" (South Miami, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Merchant of Vengeance (Shakespeare Mystery) (Hardcover)

Simon Hawke's voice again brings his popular characterizations to life of fledgling playwright William Shakespeare and side-kick, would-be-thespian Symington Smythe. In a suitably complex plot, the story comes alive in the Elizabethan issues of marriage outside of ones class, anti-Semitism, and daily life in London's underworld. The level of detail shows that Hawke is fully comfortable in portraying this blend of historical fact and fiction. A good read, filled with a few unexpected twists and turns, and a number of tongue in cheek allusions to Shakespeare's plays that keep you grinning. A pleasant quick read for a spring or summer afternoon.