"Interred With Their Bones" (Dutton, 405 pages, $25.95), by Jennifer Lee Carrell: With an obvious nod to "The Da Vinci Code," Jennifer Lee Carrell has written a two-tiered academic action yarn in which the murder mystery rests on a literary question: Who was William Shakespeare?

Kate Stanley, a Shakespeare scholar turned stage director working at the famed Globe Theatre, is drawn into a centuries old puzzle when her mentor Roz is killed in the same manner as Hamlet's father. Like all good murder-mystery victims, Roz leaves a clue for Kate and so begins a two-continent search for a lost play and Shakespeare's true identity.

With strong characters and a swerving plot, Carrell gives us a comprehensive background to the ongoing and lively academic debate centred on who really authored what are considered the most known and loved pieces of literature in the English language. Simply put, Shakespeare may have been merely a front man.

Besides issues about dates, scholars argue that to write Shakespeare's body of work, the author would have to have had an immense vocabulary, knowledge of foreign languages and access to the modes and morals of the upper-class; as a commoner, William Shakespeare had neither the knowledge nor access. The nobility, though, would have, but in the 1600s theatre was not considered a noble pursuit. So, the true author or authors, wishing to remain anonymous, would have used William Shakespeare as a public face.

Carrell's novel could have easily become mired in academics. With so much history, debate and study swirling beneath the surface, it would be tempting to dive right in. After all, it is a great mystery in its own right. Luckily, Carrell knows when to rein it in: The facts never overwhelm the nonstop action; just enough are thrown in to make the reader feel invested.

The story moves from London in the 1600s to Arizona in the 1880s to present-day Boston, Utah, Spain and England. Shakespearean scholars, hit men, Spanish missionaries and gold prospectors meet in a New Mexican cave; tea is served in Elsinore, of "Hamlet" fame, surrounded by the dust and sky of the American Southwest; and the main characters leap across continents with head-spinning regularity.

While the convergence of times and characters may seem a bit stretched, it's hard to argue with the well-backgrounded Carrell. In the end, all the journeys and meetings, however mismatched, seem perfectly plausible.

Still, it's a little hard to understand why the search for a lost play by Shakespeare would cause so many murders. As historically important as such a discovery would be, the reasons for the elaborate murders and their collateral damage become confusing.

As she wraps it all together, Carrell leads the reader down the "it's for the money path," but ends with a big-budget action scene that falls just shy of believable.

Whether a reader believes knowledge of Shakespeare's true identity could incite widespread destruction and a string of murders, "Interred With Their Bones" is an exciting, entertaining and surprisingly educational read just itching to make its big screen debut.