Review - The Shakespeare Secret

J. L. Carrell's The Shakespeare Secret is honestly pretty awful. It reminds me of every other one of these conspiracy theory/murder mystery type books I've ever read. It actually had a lot of similarities with another I read that also focused on Shakespeare -- The Sonnet Lover. Not plot-wise, but in that the character's voice wasn't very distinctive -- I couldn't identify gender from the words, and in fact went with male both times and was wrong both times -- and the characters quite similar. What is it about academics in over their heads?

The plot relied on a series of coincidences and misdirections, and the characters are cardboard cutouts. I have no idea how plausible the theory in this book is, but it read to me like pure flights of fancy. Mind you, I don't have that much familiarity with Shakespeare scholarship -- studied the plays and sonnets, not the man.

All the same, as with The Sonnet Lover, it entertained me for a while. So, two stars on goodreads ("it was okay").