A delightful adveture full of humor and heart set in Elizabethan England! Widge is an orphan with a rare talent for shorthand. His fearsome master has just one demand: steal Shakespeare's play "Hamlet"--or else. Widge has no choice but to follow orders, so he works his way into the heart of the Globe Theatre, where Shakespeare's players perform. As full of twists and turns as a London alleyway, this entertaining novel is rich in period details, colorful characters, villainy, and drama. * "A fast-moving historical novel that introduces an important era with casual familiarity." --School Library Journal, starred review "Readers will find much to like in Widge, and plenty to enjoy in this gleeful romp through olde England" --Kirkus Reviews "Excels in the lively depictions of Elizabethan stagecraft and street life." --Publishers Weekly An ALA Notable Book

Intrigue, betrayal, and romance surround Widge as we find him back in London and at the center of things, as usual. Queen Elizabeth, Shakespeare's patron, has died, but the new king and his queen love drama-on stage and off. Shakespeare has begun a new play about political intrigue, but real intrigue is close at hand. Someone is stealing from the company, and Shakespeare's scripts must be guarded at all costs-including the one he has given up on and turned over to Widge to finish. Widge finds the glory of being a playwright appealing, especially when there's a pretty girl to impress. But spying is even more exciting! Readers swept up in the first two adventures about Widge and Shakespeare's players will be enthralled yet again by this third tale with its dramatic twists and turns and an ending worthy of the Bard himself.

When he is caught by his wife in one ill-advised seduction too many, young William Shakespeare flees Stratford to seek his fortune. Cast adrift in London, Will falls in with a band of players, but greater men have their eye on this talented young wordsmith. England’s very survival hangs in the balance, and Will finds himself dispatched to Venice on a crucial assignment. Once there, Will is dazzled by the city’s masques and its beauties, but Catholic assassins would stop at nothing to end his mission on the point of their sharpened knives—and lurking in the shadows is a killer as clever as he is cruel.Suspenseful, seductive, and as sharp as an assassin’s blade, The Spy of Venice introduces a major new literary talent to the genre—thrilling if you’ve never read a word of Shakespeare and sublime if you have.

When an outbreak of the deadly Black Plague closes the Globe Theatre, William Shakespeare's acting troupe sets off on a tour of England. Widge, the orphan-turned-actor, knows that he'll be useful on the trip. Not only does he love the stage, but his knack for a unique shorthand has proven him one of the most valuable apprentices in the troupe. But then a mysterious man appears, claiming to know a secret from Widge's past-a secret that may forever force him from the theatre he loves. "An exciting, well-written tale that is sure to leave [readers] clamoring for more." (School Library Journal, starred review)

For fans of CJ Sansom and SJ Parris, Holy Spy features the Queen’s Intelligencer John Shakespeare in the latest of Rory Clements’s acclaimed and bestselling series of Tudor spy thrillers In London’s smoky taverns, a conspiracy is brewing: a group of wealthy young Catholic dissidents plot to assassinate Elizabeth, free Mary Queen of Scots—and open England to Spanish invasion. But the conspirators have been infiltrated by Sir Francis Walsingham’s top intelligencer, John Shakespeare. Shakespeare, however, is torn: the woman he loves stands accused of murder. In a desperate race against time he must save her from the noose and the realm from treachery. And then it dawns that both investigations are inextricably linked—by corruption very close to the seat of power… Published by William Morrow

An inspiring true story, perfect for fans of Hidden Figures, about an American woman who pioneered codebreaking in WWI and WWII but was only recently recognized for her extraordinary contributions. A YALSA EXCELLENCE IN NONFICTION FINALIST • A KIRKUS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Elizebeth Smith Friedman had a rare talent for spotting patterns and solving puzzles. These skills led her to become one of the top cryptanalysts in America during both World War I and World War II. She originally came to code breaking through her love for Shakespeare when she was hired by an eccentric millionaire to prove that Shakespeare's plays had secret messages in them. Within a year, she had learned so much about code breaking that she was a star in the making. She went on to play a major role decoding messages during WWI and WWII and also for the Coast Guard's war against smugglers. Elizebeth and her husband, William, became the top code-breaking team in the US, and she did it all at a time when most women weren't welcome in the workforce. Amy Butler Greenfield is an award-winning historian and novelist who aims to shed light on this female pioneer of the STEM community.

Christopher Marlowe: Poet & Spy is the most thorough and detailed life of Marlowe since John Bakeless's in 1942. It has new material on Marlowe in relation to Canterbury, also on his home life, schooling, and six and a half years at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and includes fresh data on his reading, teachers, and early achievements, including a new letter with a new date for the famous 'putative portrait' of Marlowe at Cambridge. The biography uses for the first time the Latin writings of his friend Thomas Watson to illuminate Marlowe's life in London and his career as a spy (that is, as a courier and agent for the Elizabethan Privy Council). There are new accounts of him on the continent, particularly at Flushing or Vlissingen, where he was arrested. The book also more fully explains Marlowe's relations with his chief patron, Thomas Walsingham, than ever before. This is also the first biography to explore in detail Marlowe's relations with fellow playwrights such as Kyd and Shakespeare, and to show how Marlowe's relations with Shakespeare evolved from 1590 to 1593. With closer views of him in relation to the Elizabethan stage than have appeared in any biography, the book examines in detail his aims, mind, and techniques as exhibited in all of his plays, from Dido, the Tamburlaine dramas, and Doctor Faustus through to The Jew of Malta and Edward II. It offers new treatments of his evolving versions of 'The Passionate Shepherd', and displays circumstances, influences, and the bearings of Shakespeare's 'Venus and Adonis' in relation to Marlowe's 'Hero and Leander'. Throughout, there is a strong emphasis on Marlowe's friendships and so-called 'homosexuality'. Fresh information is brought to bear on his seductive use of blasphemy, his street fights, his methods of preparing himself for writing, and his atheism and religious interests. The book also explores his attraction to scientists and mathematicians such as Thomas Harriot and others in the Ralegh-Northumberland set of thinkers and experimenters. Finally, there is new data on spies and business agents such as Robert Poley, Nicholas Skeres, and Ingram Frizer, and a more exact account of the circumstances that led up to Marlowe's murder.

"The Da Vinci Code" meets Nancy Drew in this galloping middle-grade mystery about 12-year old Colophon Letterford and the ancient treasure left to her literary publishing family. Illustrations.

"A Pulitzer Prize finalist presents the rare and intimate narrative of a daring national security sting designed to protect US soldiers, sailors, and pilots from the greatest danger they face on the battlefield--an enemy equipped with American-made weapons and technology. In Operation Shakespeare, investigative journalist John Shiffman traces an audacious and high-risk undercover operation--from Philadelphia to Shiraz to London to Beverly Hills to Tbilisi and Dubai. The sting is launched by an elite undercover Homeland Security unit created to stop the Iranians, Russians, Chinese, Pakistanis, and North Koreans from acquiring sophisticated American-made electronics capable of guiding missiles, jamming radar, and triggering countless weapons--from wireless IEDs to nuclear bombs. The US agents must outwit not only enemy brokers, but American manufacturers and global bankers too willing to put profit over national security. The three-year sting in Operation Shakespeare climaxes when the US agents lure the Iranian broker to a former Soviet republic with the promise of American-made radar, fighter-jet and missile components, then secretly drag him back to the United States, where he is held in secret for two years. The laptop the Iranian carries into the sting provides the CIA with a treasure trove, a virtual roadmap to Tehran's clandestine effort to obtain US military technology. Tenacious, richly detailed, broad in scope, and emotionally powerful--and boasting unprecedented access to the government agents fighting this shadow war, as well as the captured Iranian arms broker--Operation Shakespeare is a fast-paced and masterful account of the covert effort to preserve American military supremacy, and to protect US troops"--

THE SHAPE WAS A MAN. WILL GRASPED HIS LEFT ARM AND TRIED TO HAUL HIM UP ONTO THE RIVERBANK. THE BALD HEAD, THROWN BACK, TRAILED GRAY, WISPY STRAGGLES OF HAIR. THE DEAD MOUTH HUNG OPEN, A BLACK GAP IN THE PALE BLUR OF FACE, AND THE EYES SEEMED TO BE OPEN TOO. EVEN IN THE DARKNESS I KNEW THAT TERRIBLE FACE, FOR I HAD SEEN IT EARLIER THAT DAY AS IT WRITHED IN ANGER. IT WAS THE FACE OF OLD FARMER SPEIGHT, AND HE WAS DEAD.