Mon 26 Jan 2009
Archived Review: SIMON HAWKE – Much Ado About Murder.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[4] Comments
SIMON HAWKE – Much Ado About Murder.
Forge, hardcover; First Edition, December 2002; reprint paperback: January 2004.
There’s a period (1585-1592) in the life of William Shakespeare that’s called the Lost Years, in which nothing is known — where he was, what he was doing, and who he was hanging out with.
Filling in the gap — pure speculation on Hawke’s part, not to mention audacity — here’s the third in a series of detective adventures of the most famous poet and playwright the world has ever known. Assisting him is his good friend and hanger-on with the Queen’s Men, Symington “Tuck” Smythe.
Hard times have hit the traveling group of players. Plague has struck London, and all of the city’s playhouses have been closed down. (Not so incidentally, Hawke describes the horrible condition of the unsanitary streets in more than adequate detail. Ghastly.) Will has sold some sonnets, though, so he and Tuck are not starving, yet.
They also run athwart the Steady Boys, a gang of young ruffians who feel that the country is being done under by too many immigrants: England for Englishmen in Shakespeare’s day!
But while the events in Will and Tuck’s day-to-day life are interesting, after 130 pages, they’re no longer entirely riveting, so for the mystery fans perched in the front row, when the murder of Master Leonardo occurs, it’s with (dare I say) a certain amount of relief and “at last.” It’s a relatively minor case to be solved, but it’s Will’s sense of what makes people do what they do that saves the day.
Bawdy at times, extremely funny at others, this is an entirely enjoyable lark, a remarkable flight of fancy, and I think you’ll like it, too.
[UPDATE] 01-26-09. It turns out that Simon Hawke is (or was) an SF writer named Nicholas Yermakov, before he changed his named legally to Hawke.
He’s most noted, perhaps, for a long series of books in his “TimeWars” series, the first of which you see here to the left. He’s also written Battlestar Galactica, Batman, and Star Trek novels, as well as novelizations of “Friday the Thirteenth” movies.
There were only four books in his series of Shakespeare movies, I’m sorry to say. Perhaps the funny bones of a wider audience weren’t tickled as much as mine was. The fourth one was never even released in paperback:
The Shakespeare & Smythe mysteries —
The Slaying of the Shrew. Forge, hc, 2001; pb, 2002.
Much Ado About Murder. Forge, hc, 2002; pb, 2004.
The Merchant of Vengeance. Forge, hc, 2003.
[LATER THE SAME DAY.] I was looking at the two cover images I included in this post, and I think I can see one reason why there were 12 books in the TimeWars series, and only four in Hawke’s Shakespeare series, even though they were desgned for two entirely different audiences.
You probably can, too. Look at the cover of Much Ado. It’s perfectly designed to show that it has something to do with a mystery (from the title) and something to do with Shakespeare (also from the title). Other than that? Dullsville.
January 27th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Simon Hawke also wrote a series of “Wizard of …” books, which feature Merlin, Mordred, and magic in our times. One of the recurring characters is Makepeace (sp?), a literature professor at a college in NYC, who is also a fairy. In the final book of the series, we learn that his real name is Puck and that he let his friend Will sign his own name to the plays that Puck wrote back in Elizabethan times.
I love how Hawke has Will come up with a rhyme for “orange” in A Mystery of Errors.
Kay
January 27th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Kay
I haven’t read any of Hawke’s “Wizard” series, but I’ve noted that they’re included in Al Hubin’s CRIME FICTION IV. Some are listed as having only marginal crime content, but that’s all I know. So far I haven’t had a chance to investigate any further.
If I may, I have some questions?
Are there crimes to be solved in the books? In a major sense, or only in minor ways?
Is there any chance that Puck in the Wizard books was “Tuck” in the Shakespeare series? (I think I’m probably stretching it here, and by quite a bit.)
Of the latter books, I think I’ve read Shrew, but not Mystery of Errors. What rhymes with orange?
Best
__ Steve
January 27th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Simon Hawke – Wizard of 4th Street series, in order of publication
All of the books involve magic, which has become the universal power source. The central theme of the series is the search for and eradication of “evil” magic workers released from captivity in the first book. The good guys are three descendents of “good” magic workers who become avatars for the spirits of their ancestors, who originally entrapped the baddies.
Each book involves crimes, so various police contingents become involved. However, the mystery is more how the heroes will manage to thwart the villains and to avoid arrest and prosecution for their necessary, but sometimes illegal, maneuvers.
The Wizard of 4th Street – New York & New England
The Wizard of Whitechapel – London & environs
The Wizard of Sunset Strip – Los Angeles
The Wizard of Rue Morgue – Paris
The Samurai Wizard – Tokyo & other parts of Japan
The Wizard of Sante Fe – in New Mexico
The Wizard of Camelot – prequel; Merlin’s return
The Wizard of Lovecraft’s Cafe – NYC
The Last Wizard – NYC, US Southwest, Washington, D. C.
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I don’t know about the Tuck/Puck-Makepeace character was meant to be the same. They do share the same hefty size. One of the running jokes in the Wizard series is that Makepeace, who is Victor Buono-like, claims to be a fairy, and takes much umbrage when someone doubts him because of his mammothness.
Fiction DataBase has pictures of the covers. Makepeace is on the second book. You can also read the back blurb for each book.
http://www.fictiondb.com/
The rhyme for “orange” is “door hinge.”
January 27th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Kay
Thanks for adding the settings to this list of the Wizard books. I’ve forwarded them on to Al Hubin, who doesn’t yet have them all. I know I have the first eight, and the ninth is probably on hand but not cataloged yet.
I’ll also have to read one someday! They’re on the list…
Door hinge, hmm? Almost, say I, but not quite. (In a separate email you suggest syringe as a possibility, but no, I agree such devices weren’t likely to be around in Shakespeare’s day, and only a better poet than I (or worse) could say more than almost once again.
— Steve