Two travelers, Will Shakespeare-a fledgling dramatist, and Symington Smythe, an ostler and aspiring thespian, meet at a roadside inn and decide to cast their lot together for fame and fortune in the cutthroat world of the London theater in Elizabethan England . . . but neither was prepared for their offstage encounter with A Mystery of Errors . When a backer's daughter is double-crossed by a would-be suitor, the reluctant bride turns to the ostler and the playwright for help. Little does anyone realize that these simple affairs of the heart and an arranged marriage will lead to a vast web of conspiracy, mistaken identity, and murder that finds the playwright targeted for assassination and the ostler hopelessly in love. But such matters are routine in A Mystery of Errors, where Shakespeare in Love meets the Brother Cadfael mysteries of Ellis Peters.

Will Shakespeare, Symington "Tuck" Smythe, and their band of thespian associates are contracted to provide entertainment at a rural estate as part of a large wedding pageant. When the headstrong bride turns up dead, and overheard conversations contain conspiratorial plots against the families involved, Will and Tuck must once again pull double duty as thespians and sleuths to solve the case of The Slaying of the Shrew .

Fledgling playwright Will Shakespeare and Symington Smythe, ostler and would-be thespian, and are now firmly ensconced in their theater company . . . But due to the plague, all of London's theaters have been closed, its players now broke, forcing our intrepid duo to seek employment in other lines of work—Smythe smithing and Will poeting. Then a murder rocks all of London. Shakespeare and Smythe decide to solve the crime, but they must rely on their wits to survive both the conspiriacies and the cutthroat business of Elizabethan theater

Will, the fledgling playwright and poet, and Tuck, the would-be actor and rest-of-the-time ostler, have been enjoying their lives on and behind the stage...if only it wasn't for the occasional interruptions: plague, the closing of the theater for reasons of law or finance, and the occasional murder. As luck would have it, the dramatic twosome must once again play detective in a case that involves the fates of those near and dear to their hearts as well as certain hoped-to- have-been—forgotten family members . Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta is all the rage on the London stage, and the young bard wishes to rise to the competition. With companion Tuck at his side, Will makes a sojourn for research purposes into the Elizabethan underworld, where contracts are blood bonds and the quality of mercy is stretched to its very limits. He becomes embroiled in a tangle of unlucky young lovers, anti-Semitism, and rogue justice.