Sleep of Death

Near the end of Elizabeth I’s reign, aspiring actor Nick Revill arrives in London and joins the Chamberlain’s Men. After losing his lodgings, he is invited into a wealthy Thames-side household by a grieving young man whose father has died and whose mother has rapidly married the dead man’s brother.

The family’s resemblance to Shakespeare’s Hamlet is too close for Nick to ignore. Asked to discover whether the death was natural, he follows clues through domestic rivalries and the theatrical company, where suspicion eventually reaches William Shakespeare himself. Nick must decide whether the play is explaining the crime or encouraging him to see a pattern that is not there.