70. The Book of Air and Shadows - Michael Gruber

A Novel
Audio read by Stephen Hoye
Published: 2007
For: Adults
15 cds/ 18.5 hours
480 pages
Rating: 3
Publisher's Weekly Starred Review

Told from three points of view, parts of this book were v-e-r-y tedious, others more interesting. My biggest problem with it, right from the start, was that I didn't think the reader (Stephen Hoye) fit. At all. Something about the timbre of his voice, or his accent, or......well, I'm not sure. But I began wishing I were reading it instead of listening to it. I bet I would have liked the story much more.

The three points of view: Jake Mishken was a dolt. Albert Crusetti was a gem. Richard Brayskirtle was a pompous ass, a seventeenth century pompous ass (and Jake Mishken was his 20th century counterpart). Well, this doesn't tell much about the story. Okay. Albert Crusetti and his coworker, Caroline Raleigh, find some hidden letters inside the covers of a 17th century book. Some are encoded. Throughout the book, we, the readers, are allowed to hear/see/read these letters, the tale of Richard Brayskirtle and his association with William Shakespeare. Apparently, he has hidden away a WS play about Mary, Queen of Scots. When Crusetti gets duped out of the letters, they make their way to Jake Mishken, an intellectual property lawyer, who becomes very deeply embroiled in the escapades that are to follow - including his family (Nazi mother, Jewish father, former thug-current priest brother, rich Swiss wife and two odd children), the Crusetti family (librarian mother, deceased cop father, lawyer and cop siblings), and a variety of Russian gangsters and Shakespearean scholars. It sounds a bit complicated, and it is....it's interesting at points, exciting at points, and pointless at points.

Get it? You switch back and forth between Shakespeare's early 1600's and contemporary America, with a bit of contemporary England thrown in. Good luck.