Lifeline: Grey Barred

by David Milligan

‘“…there are three factions. Those entrusted with protecting the legacy of Shakespeare and those intent on tearing it apart.”“That’s two. The third?”’Is there more truth in fiction than in truth itself? And how far will one man go to protect Shakespeare’s legacy, whether it is the truth or not?A desk is gifted to Charles Montagu, the 1st Earl of Halifax’s son, by the famous playwright’s last surviving direct descendent, his granddaughter. It is said to be the writer’s own.A bid is put forward for the playwright’s skull, at any cost.There is word of diaries and, most desired of all, Shakespeare’s final play, Socrates, which it is believed confirms the poisoning of Queen Elizabeth I by the Montagu family themselves.The third faction? Those who haven’t yet shown their hand.Driven by what is revealed in unexplained flashbacks, Lance Tremble, a man in the throws of kidney failure, realises he has been assigned the task of untangling truth from fiction and, ultimately, continuing to protect Shakespeare’s legacy. What he discovers lays bare anything anyone thought they knew about Britain’s most famous playwright, and begins with an inscription – an anagram? But in part or in whole? – on a wooden tablet hidden deep within the playwright’s ‘A rose by any other name, let exhorted man aid thankful world…’

493 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 24, 2020