I looked forward to reading this with much anticipation since the description seemed so enticing: a defiant woman in 1600s London, involved with a group determined to rescue Jews at risk of being victimized by the Inquisition enraging Portugal and Spain, meets and has a love affair with William Shakespeare during his early years as an actor and playwright. Inquisition drama? Plague infestations? Shakespeare?? Yes please! Sadly, the experience didn't live up to the hope.In this much-too-long novel, two plotlines run concurrently, with no meeting of them other than that one of the pair of lovers occasionally dips into the other. Rebecca's thread seems to be the more dominant as her family faces danger and doom while attempting to smuggle out conversos, Jews like themselves who practice Christianity publically and their own faith in secret. While Spain and Portugal continues to prosecute and execute them, England's Queen has taken a "don't ask, don't tell" viewpoint on the matter. With Rebecca's father being the Queen's own physician, there are added measures of both safety and danger: the family has access to the Queen, but also are under the very watchful eye of Court members who have their own power agendas.Will Shakespeare has his own worries: his livelihood has been shut down due to the plague, his mentor has been mysteriously murdered, and he's been asked by his mentor's widow to solve the crime. There seems to be someone, however, who doesn't want this to happen because daggers keep getting thrown at him. Having engaged ina street duel with a youth (who turns out to be Rebecca), Shakespeare finds himself juggling multiple dangerous situations. His love affair with Rebecca keeps him involved in her drama, even when he doesn't actually know the whole story, and he travels to different areas in search of the murderer of his dear friend.While I've read other books which use well-known historical names for their own fictional main characters and not had an issue with it, for some reason I found the use of William Shakespeare really jarring here. It may have been the fact that he was rarely ever "Will" or "William"...occasionally he was referred to by Rebecca as "Willy" but even she mostly referred to him as Shakespeare. It was like my mind was never allowed to forget that he was a famous playwright. Immortalized playwrights studied by 13 year olds in every high school don't piss on the floor or provide belching instructions in depressed taverns. It was a major disconnect.And while I was ok with Rebecca initially, she gradually started getting on my nerves. Her "fiery defiance" translated as stubborn stupidity; she was determined to do what she wanted when she wanted, and then when it would go horribly wrong, she'd wring her hands and wail. The feisty spirit that so many seemed to find charming often served as the catalyst for getting them into trouble in the first place, so while the characters (especially the men) fawned all over her feisty, for me, the charm of feisty tarnished very quickly.I won't even get into creepy, perverted Queen Elizabeth.I give it two stars because there were sections that greatly fascinated me; unfortunately, I had to drag myself through the rest of this over-long tale to get to those moments. How disappointing.
I couldn't decide between two stars and one. I was expecting to read a mystery, and often I felt as though I was in the middle of a soap opera. The whole mystery part of this book was sorely lacking. I think maybe Kellerman tried to do just a little too much with this book. There were just too many plot lines, and none of the plot lines received sufficient attention. This book might have been better if the author had chosen to stick to one genre instead of a combination of mystery, historical fiction, and romance. On a positive note, the old vocabulary was highly amusing.
What do You think about The Quality Of Mercy (2002)?
Such a great read. You feel like you are there in the story with the heroine and wanting her to succeed as much as possible. Its great to read a story with Shakespeare actually in it and it provides an indication of where he found his inspiration for one of my favourite plays "The Merchant of Venice". If you read "The Quality of Mercy", follow this by reading "The Merchant of Venice" and it all seems to make alot more sense.
—Gina
This book is so bad that I keep thinking it CANNOT be this bad; the author has a perfectly good mystery series (police procedural) in her Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus LA cop mysteries, so how can this attempt at historical fiction be SO wretched? I have started it at least three times, and I cannot get further than fifty or so pages in. The language is a horrible mish-mash of periods, and certainly not Elizabethan more than in shreds and patches. The characters are obnoxious. The crudity is ridiculous (the characterization of Elizabeth Tudor as being a lewd lesbian predator is particularly noxious and stupid). In all, it makes me wonder whether Jonathan Kellerman ghost-writes his wife's Decker/Lazarus series. A good mystery could be written about conversos in Tudor England, and I'd be glad to read it. This book, however, is very definitely not it.
—Abra
I tried, I truly did. This romp through bawdy Elizabethan England was just too much. I'm also not a fan of historical figures being put into the role of detective or anything else. This had a pretty ok beginning with William Shakespeare trying to find the killer of his friend, but it went downhill after that. When we hit the bounding seas, that was it for me. It was then I realized I didn't really care who killed old Harry or what happened to Rebecca or anything else about the story. May try another Faye Kellerman book some day, but this one is headed for the Friends of the Library where somebody might like it a whole lot better than I do.
—Nancy
