Description

At the VIP opening of The Shed, a new Arts Community Centre for Rutherford, Lucien Wadsworth a Shakespearean lecturer at Rutherford University is found dead in the gents toilets. It looks like he had slipped and cracked his skull on the porcelain. Detective Chief Inspector Steve Winwood soon discovers that Lucien Wadsworth is not his real name. Further investigations by his Sergeant, Miles Davis uncovers the fact that he had taught at many other Universities under a variety of aliases all backed up by false references. Winwood finds that The Shed was a project funded and supported by the local newspaper group, the local brewery, the railway company and the university. As the investigations meet successive dead ends he finds he is not investigating a recent suspicious death but thrown into an older four hundred year old mystery. No one will confirm nor deny that a manuscript recently uncovered by Wadsworth was written by Christopher Marlowe in 1620 is genuine, despite his death in 1593. Moving through the groups involved in The Shed and friends whom he trusts he needs to unscramble fact from fiction. He remains unconvinced that Wadsworth's death was an accident as he suffered bruising before his fall. Winwood's darkest thoughts become real when a member of the secret service becomes involved along with a strange right wing private club. Very slowly the mystery unravels and it remains a possibility that the manuscript is real. There is plenty of background regarding the truth and the theories behind the often held belief that it was Christopher Marlowe who wrote Shakespeare. The investigation reaches a conclusion regarding Wadsworth's death and the Marlowe script that is agreeable to all, including Winwood's superiors.