Publisher's Synopsis
In this mash up and send up of the Shakespeare classic where the Bard meets Dashiell Hammett, comes a new twist as the job of exposing the King of Denmark's killer falls to tough talking private eye Richard Shamus, prime operative of the F.B.I. That's the Fictional Bureau of Investigation. Shamus handles the toughest, dirtiest case in English literature. He is by every turn of the phrase a fictional detective.Summoned by the King of Denmark who lives in fear for his life, Shamus arrives in 16th Century Denmark to find the King dying from "murder most foul." Before he expires the King extracts a promise from Shamus to find his killer and aid his son Prince Hamlet in avenging his death. There's just one problem. The King dies before he can identify his murderer.As he pursues the case Shamus falls under the spell of the ambitious Lady Ophelia, a femme fatale who seems to want everthing including our detective.With nobody pointing a finger, except straight up, Shamus focuses his suspicions on Gertrude, King Hamlet's beautiful and randy widow and Claudius, her new husband who has claimed the dead king's crown for himself.Shamus's job isn't made any easier by the King's irascible Ghost and, the always on the fence, Prince Hamlet who expresses no interest in avenging a father he hated.In this shifting landscape of deceit and deception, the only thing Shamus knows for sure is that something is definitely rotten in the state of Denmark.
