''The Book of Air and Shadows'' is a

thriller Thriller may refer to: * Thriller (genre), a broad genre of literature, film and television ** Thriller film, a film genre under the general thriller genre Comics * ''Thriller'' (DC Comics), a comic book series published 1983–84 by DC Comics i ...

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

by Michael Gruber published in 2007.

Plot summary

Set concurrently in the 17th century and the current century, the

is an intriguing and complex

based on the mystery of

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

. Jake Mishkin, a lonely and troubled lapsed Catholic intellectual property

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...

(though he is generally assumed to be Jewish-American despite his Waffen SS Officer grandfather) teams up with a young man, Albert Crosetti, who has taken a job at an antiquarian bookstore in the hope of saving enough to fund his studies at NYU film school. Together they hunt for Shakespeare's elusive lost manuscript.

References

2007 American novels American thriller novels Fiction set in the 1600s {{2000s-thriller-novel-stub