To Read or Not to Read: Shakespearean Dan Brown Knockoff Begs the Question

If you wish that you could experience The Da Vinci Code all over again, pick up a copy of Jennifer Lee Carrell’s Interred With Their Bones. The action-packed thriller decodes the mystery of Shakespeare’s identity and the authorship of his lost play, The History of Cardenio.

Written in the five-act structure of a Shakespeare play, the novel takes the reader from Utah to New Mexico, Cambridge to London, not unlike the international setting of Brown’s novel.

The parallels between the two novels continue as the story progresses—in both stories, the female protagonist is aided by a reliable and knowledgeable male guardian as the two become entangled in a friendship-romance, the main characters are framed as murderers and chased by the police, and the most trusted advisors turn out to be enemies.

To Carrell’s credit, she seems to be more qualified to write a historical novel of this kind. Instead of relying on other scholars for background knowledge, she uses her own education as a Harvard graduate with a Ph.D . in English literature and her experience as a director for the Hyperion Theatre Company to write a historically creative, but accurate, fictional account of the Bard’s life.

For example, she stresses clear distinctions between Shakespeare’s plays from the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. She also seems to have a knack for precision in language, perhaps due to her previous experiences with historical nonfiction, namely The Speckled Monster.

Although Carrell’s debut novel has been a huge success—it is already on the New York Times Bestseller List—it is rather predictable and far-fetched. Rather than surprising the reader through its twists and turns, the novel gives the reader a sense of monotony as the pages turn and the plot tortuously continues.

Each development in the story line adds onto the same trends as the pages before. Even when new knowledge ensues, the general theme and the viewer’s beliefs regarding the characters barely change.

The novel starts off with the murder of Rosalind Howard, a “flamboyantly eccentric” Shakespeare scholar, amid a large-scale fire at the Globe Theatre in London. While Roz’s estranged student, Kate Stanley, awaits information on the mysterious gift she had received a few hours earlier, Roz is murdered as Hamlet’s father was, with poison in the ear. As Kate, now a prime suspect in a murder case, flees London and searches for clues with the aid of Sir Henry Lee, a famed and wealthy British actor, and Ben Pearl, the flirtatious bodyguard hired by Roz before she dies, she unveils clues about the sought-after treasure, The History of Cardenio. This search is not without consequences, however, as more deaths ensue in the manner of characters in Shakespeare’s plays.

The only entertainment in the novel is the bizarrely flirtatious dynamic between Kate and Ben. After he rescues her from the library she says, “Did you save my life tonight?” He replies, “Sounds like Elton John.” She then reflects, “His eyes drifted lazily across me, bringing to mind a leopard eyeing gazelles from the branches of a comfortable tree.”

Although the author’s knowledge regarding Shakespeare is extensive, the plot is far too similar to its precursor, The Da Vinci Code. One might argue that the diction and general skill of Carrell’s prose is far superior to that of Brown, but Brown’s novel seems far more fast-paced and provocative—it questions the integrity of the papacy, it incorporates the risque sex lives of prominent Priory of Scion members, and it gives a thrilling alternative interpretation of Mary Magdalene. Interred With Their Bones, on the other hand, merely hinges on a strenuous “what if” that is far less interesting.

The book’s downfall is that it is perhaps a little bookish to be a pleasure read, and a little far-fetched to be a serious one. The Da Vinci Code might be the easy-read alternative, while The Historian just might be the difficult-read alternative to Carrell’s fictional debut.