The Book of Air and Shadows (ISBN 0060874465)

Literary thriller trumps Da Vinci Code:
Literary thriller of the type popular since The Da Vinci Code (and much better done, by the way, than that oversold, underwritten mediocrity), Gruber posits a newly-discovered letter by a contemporary of William Shakespeare that refers to ciphered letters detailing spying on Shakespeare's life and a potentially extant manuscript of a previously-unknown play. Of course, there are questions about the verity of the letter (a Shakespeare scholar previously duped by a similar fraud plays a prominent role), the existence and verity of the ciphered spy letters, and most of all the play manuscript. Gruber maintains this tension nearly to the last page of the book, not an easy feat when weaving together the different threads of the story while keeping the reader interested and the story hurdling forward. The book includes its share of cliches including simpering literary homosexuals, fast-living wealthy New Yorkers, and Russian gangsters, but to Gruber's credit he plays the story for laughs when it needs it and makes the stereotypes plausible.

Gripping but requires endurance:
Michael Gruber paints vivid portraits of all the characters, down to the details about them that are filthy (and necessary to the story). It transports you back in time to Shakespeare's day. You will find yourself caught up in all of the different character's individual scenarios and wondering if they could possibly be linked. I found myself in a marathon session of reading in order to find out how everthing was linked, if at all, and to discover if all had really been air and shadows. If you enjoyed The Thirteenth Tale or The Shadow of the Wind, this book will captivate you and give you an at times tedious, but overall rewarding read.

Fast Ride with Plenty of Chills and Thrills:
While not as literary as The Name of the Rose or Possession, this mystery has action, antique book sellers, travel, a big cast of characters and contemporary New York City love stories. Surely it will become a major motion picture, make stars of the young book geeks, and give a few older actors a good role. I'm glad I read the book first. There is nothing this good on T.V.

A feast of meaty fiction:
This book is like a seven-course literary feast for the starving reader. It is my first book by Mr. Gruber, and having finished it about 10 minutes ago, I'll be ordering the rest of his catalog immediately. It absolutely soars on so many levels: a superbly plotted thriller with a deft, energetic plot full of intricate, dark twists; an existential meditation of the roots of personal identity and growing up; a good-natured, deconstructionist poke at fiction and metafiction; a biting, anecdotal familial drama (or two!), á la David Sedaris. It never comes off clumsy or over-reaching and it's written in an effortless, breezy prose that makes it impossible to put down. Like any good meal, you want to slow yourself down just so you can savor every flavor, but in this author's capable hands, resistance is clearly futile. When you're done, you'll just sit back and think to yourself, "Wow, I won't have anything that good for a long time." And you'll be right.

A Book of Substance:
Who is this guy and how does he know so much about people, Shakespeare, arcane ciphers, and have the ability to spill it all out on a page full of sharp and intelligent prose? I bought this book because I had read Gruber's voodoo trilogy starting with Tropic of Night. I remember those books for their attention to plot and the depth of the characters caught up in it. The books were fascinating because Gruber's bizarre story lines were driven by the personalities living the story and not the other way around. His characters were not stage props moved back in forth in service of the story. They were the story. I ordered this book with some trepidation. I am not a big fan of Shakespeare or the Da Vinci Code. The former is to stilted, the latter so formulaic that it should have gone right to a video game to be played on my kid's XBox. I could not have been more pleasantly surprised. From the first sentence to the last, the people in this book, all of them, dead or alive, speak to you. They invite you to sit in the drawing room of their dreams, good and bad, and listen. And you do at great benefit to a plot that moves along as a result of those dreams. Every character in this book could have been a cliche. None of them are. As a consequence, the plot, involving a missing Shakepeare play, is not. That is the difference between this book and the Da Vinci Code. I will miss Mishkin, Crosetti, and most of all, Carolyn Rolly. Here is a point of reference. Think of Thomas Cook collaborating with Robert Ludlam.