[.ca] The Book of Air and Shadows (ISBN 0060874465)

Fascinating historical thriller!:
My wife brought this book home a few days ago as she loves Da Vinci style thrillers, I don't however. But I do enjoy good writing. I picked up "Air and Shadows" and started reading the first chapter, In spite of my self I was hooked! In less the 48 hours I had finished the book. The Plot involves Ciphered seventeenth century letters that lead to a race to find an undiscovered Shakespear play. The story could easily have turned into another run of the mill historical thriller full of stereotypical characters and genre scenes we have all seen too many times, but the author doesn't allow that to happen. The book is intelligent, without being preachy, and the twists and turns are believable and for the most part I did not see them coming. Real historical nuance is woven into the fiction to create an especially satisfying read. This book really should enjoy a wide audience and would make a great movie in the right hands. Another book that deserves theatrical attention is the cult classic,

Great Modern Literature:
The Book of Air and Shadows was absolutely thrilling to read! Gruber takes you captive on the very first page providing you with a hint of the end of the book. Some 400 pages later, I found myself still eagerly turning the pages to reveal the end of the story! The balance between the story of Mishkin and Crosetti is masterful - it makes it very hard to find a spot to stop reading! The thread of the encrypted Bracegirdle letters runs a parallel story throughout the novel. While not difficult to read, it is substantive in language and rich in detail. I enjoyed the detail in this book and I wanted to savor each page and each twist and turn. The characters are complete and complex - even peripheral characters have enough detail that they are all real to the reader. I will be searching out every book by this author. Toss away the light, unmemorable novel and grab this worthy piece of modern literature!

An intelligent read:
Like Gruber's earlier works, this is an intelligent mystery, filled with anthropological, historical and literary insights alongside the danger and darkness. A great storyteller, Gruber moves us across time and place skillfully, but brings us home with lots of mother - son dynamics (in all his books!), capturing the familiar (and frustrating) engagements that often occur between strong intelligent moms, and capable loving (yet unsure!) sons. Gruber draws us into the lives of his characters and their family relations (good, bad, weird, loving, strained or threatened) with angst, humour and fast talk. Enjoy.

First rate historial fiction...or is it?:
I finally finished The Book of Air and Shadows. It took me way longer than it should have, but the book is finished. And despite the length of time that it took me to finish the novel, I give it the Dave two thumbs up! So what's the book about? In short, it's a Da Vinci Code type of novel where the grand prize is an unknown Shakespearean manuscript. The novel is written from three different perspectives, each of which provides a unique viewpoint on the story. And better still, the perspective is written in a different style. This feature of the novel I really liked. The only thing that I didn't like was the writing style for the protagonist from Shakespearean times. The spelling is old English and when words like 'only' are written like 'onlie' it takes double long to read. But having said that, it does give a very unique style to the book. My recommendation? Go out and pick up the novel. You won't regret it.