Shakespeare is Missing

Shakespeare Is Missing is a pair of tales with crossing arcs.
The first begins in 1605. A man and woman carry on an illicit tryst in the
Crown Inn, Oxford, England. The lovers are married; not, of course, to each other.
A child is born of their clandestine affair. The man, whose reputation as a playwright
and poet is growing throughout his country, is William Shakespeare. The woman
is Jane Davenant, the wife of the inn's proprietor, who sleeps peacefully one fl oor
below. Jane will later be known as "The Dark Lady" of Shakespearean legend.
The second tale, set in 2010, moves eastward across America then on to
England. Its antagonist seeks vengeance against the Bard, foreshadowed by poems,
which pathetically mimic Shakespeare's style. The vengeance begins with thefts
and vandalism of the Bard's works in San Francisco and Las Vegas, then escalates
from an assault in Milwaukee to explosive mayhem and murder at Washington
DC's venerated Folger Shakespeare Library.
To solve these crimes, Ovid Kent, a former DEA operative, now a rare book
dealer, is hired by a billionaire English fi nancier and owner of the world's largest
private collection of Shakespeareana, an expected target of the mayhem. Ovid is
aided throughout by the frequently evanescing Will Shakespeare himself.
The storylines have their dramatic nexus in Oxford, in the very room of the
very inn where the fi rst tale began. There, the stunning climax plays itself out in a
breath-holding scene between Ovid, Will Shakespeare and the antagonist