By Robin Vidimos
Special to The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 04/06/2007 10:15:59 PM MDT
What do you call a book built around a scavenger hunt that hits the ground running, accelerates the pace and raises the stakes until disparate plot threads are brought together in a heart-stopping climax? A thriller.
Some readers avoid the genre because it has a reputation, not entirely deserved, as revolving around plot while housing characters as thin as April pond ice.
"The Book of Air and Shadows," an intricately crafted and literate work, should give the genre a good shake. What Michael Gruber has omitted in car chases and shootouts (and rest easy, those elements aren't completely erased), he's more than made up for with a rich cast of characters who are difficult to leave when the final pages are turned.
The opening scenes belong to one thoroughly adrenaline-amped Jake Mishkin. He is a New York intellectual property rights lawyer. His clients are writers and musicians, his opponents are corporate entities. He's not a litigator; he moves in a polite world where heated confrontation is rare. So he is disconcerted, to say the least, to find people stalking and shooting at him.
It's all because a 17th-century letter, the Bracegirdle Manuscript, has fallen into his possession. The manuscript was brought to him by Shakespearean scholar Professor Bulstrode, who was visiting Columbia from Oxford University. But Bulstrode is no longer in the picture. He's been tortured to death.
Just how Bulstrode came to possess the manuscript is another story, and this story belongs to Albert Crosetti.
A bookstore romance
Albert seems the chronic underachiever. The youngest child of a much-honored New York City cop, at 24 he's still living with his mother in a Queens bungalow. He dreams of attending film school, but hasn't accumulated tuition. To that end, he works days at Sidney Glaser Rare Books, handling databases and Internet sales. And he passes his days with a longing eye toward a store associate, Carolyn Rolly.
A restaurant kitchen fire results in water damage to the adjacent bookstore. The greatest loss is that of a 1732 work by John Churchill, "Collection of Voyages and Travels," which is now worth only the price of the maps that can be broken out to be sold separately. Carolyn has some knowledge of bookbinding and enlists Albert's help in getting the books dried.
The discovery of part of the Bracegirdle Manuscript under the endpapers of the first volume of Churchill leads them to investigate the other five. By the time they are done, they have two documents, both written in Jacobean Secretary hand: The first, a letter dated October 1642; and the second, a document that seems written in code. And Albert believes the letter includes a reference to its author having spied on Shakespeare.
Gruber spins a deftly constructed story. He leads with Jake's first-person narrative, follows with a piece of the Bracegirdle narrative and then jumps back into a third-person voice to follow Albert and Carolyn. Each strand reveals different aspects of both plot and character.
Jake can only start his story from the point where he receives the manuscript, but his telling includes bits of personal history that have formed his character and now illuminate his actions. Albert's strand unfolds at more of a distance, and the reader shares his confusion as his possession of the manuscript uproots his once-staid life.
The young lady vanishes
Carolyn does not believe the Bracegirdle letter includes a reference to Shakespeare and, to prove it, takes Albert to visit Bulstrode. The professor agrees with Carolyn, but offers to buy the letter because it may have other historical significance. Albert isn't completely convinced by Bulstrode's arguments, but is persuaded by Carolyn to part with the letter. But not before he makes a copy of what he's selling, and not without holding back the original of the ciphered document.
Carolyn disappears the day after Bulstrode buys the letter. And, as fate would have it, some fairly nasty people would like to get their hands on both documents. Those who possess them, Jake and Albert, would like to know why. Albert is trying to track down Carolyn to find out. Jake has a slightly different dilemma; his part of the manuscript has been taken by, or perhaps kidnapped with, a young woman who bears a striking resemblance to a younger version of his estranged wife.
"The Book of Air and Shadows" is, clearly, a complicated tale. But Gruber is a master of his material. He sidesteps the obvious risks with disparate plot lines, and his remain unmuddied and ultimately join together naturally. As the story moves on, he raises the stakes not only by endangering the innocent, but by enlarging the pool of the potentially guilty.
Robin Vidimos reviews books for The Denver Post and Buzz in the 'Burbs.
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The Book of Air and Shadows
By Michael Gruber
$24.95
http://www.michaelgruberbooks.com/home.html
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