Martyr is not for those who skirt around touchy subjects and themes. Sex is often present, along with gory details of torture and mistreatment.

Dryden, John (1889). Arnold, Thomas (ed.). Dryden: An Essay of Dramatic Poesy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. hdl: 2027/umn.31951t00074232s. ISBN 978-81-7156-323-4. OCLC 7847292. OL 23752217M. A pesar de contar con el respaldo del secretario de la reina, el puesto de mayor poder tras la propia monarca, nadie respeta la autoridad de John. Todo el mundo le pone trabas, le insultan o pasan de él. Resulta muy frustrante ver cómo se esfuerza por investigar y seguir pistas mientras los sospechosos o testigos le ignoran, se enojan con él o le mienten constantemente.Kathman, David (2003). "The Question of Authorship". In Wells, Stanley; Orlin, Lena Cowen (eds.). Shakespeare: an Oxford Guide. Oxford Guides. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp.620–632. ISBN 978-0-19-924522-2. OCLC 50920674. Greer, Germaine (1986). Shakespeare. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-287538-9. OCLC 12369950.

Schoenbaum, Samuel (1981). William Shakespeare: Records and Images. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-520234-2. OCLC 6813367. I like a good historical mystery. This book, while not one of my favorites, is a good read on the whole. John Shakespeare (he's the brother of the Bard) is employed as a chief investigator by Queen Elizabeth I's spymaster, Sir John Walsingham. It's a bad time to in England if you're not English and/or Church of England - Elizabeth is struggling over her decision to execute her cousin, the traitorous Mary, Queen of Scots, there's a rogue priest on the loose, and someone has murdered and ghoulishly mutilated Lady Blanche Howard, a distant relation of Elizabeth and a recent convert to the Catholic faith. The Spanish are threatening war. Sir Francis Drake's life is in peril and Shakespeare is charged with finding the Spanish agent who Bloom, Harold (2008). Heims, Neil (ed.). King Lear. Bloom's Shakespeare Through the Ages. Bloom's Literary Criticism. ISBN 978-0-7910-9574-4. OCLC 156874814.An excellent little story about a fictional brother of William Shakespeare who works for Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth’s secretary, the original ‘M’ of intelligence. Shapiro, James (2010). Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4165-4162-2. OCLC 699546904. Wells, Stanley (2006). Shakespeare & Co: Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Dekker, Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton, John Fletcher and the Other Players in His Story. New York: Pantheon. ISBN 978-0-375-42494-6. OCLC 76820663. Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. [10] [11] His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. [3] [4] [5] In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated with other playwrights.