The Quality of Mercy

by Faye Kellerman

Book Overview

Rebecca Lopez enjoys a life of privilege in Elizabeth's England--yet she guards secrets she dares not reveal. The beautiful, tempestuous daughter of the queen's own physician, Rebecca is also a converso --a Jew who practices her prohibited religion clandestinely--helping others of her banned faith escape persecution and death. Her insatiable hunger for excitement often takes her to the bustling streets of London in male garb to experience the kind of adventure available only to men. But one such outing is leading her into a dangerous viper's nest built of intrigue and foul murder, in the company of a dashing young actor who inflames her romantic passions even as he escorts her toward peril...a charming and fearless would-be playwright who calls himself Will Shakespeare.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061582514
• ISBN13: 9780061582516
• Release Date: April 2009
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 592 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

RE: Review by 12 year old Portuguese reader

To correct this readers review, the book states the Lopez family IS Portuguese, and not Spanish -- Page 220 in hardcover.

LOVED IT, LOVED IT, LOVED IT

I am unable to write just how much I enjoyed and have recommended this book to others.Faye Kellerman would do well to write another historically based book.Read it if you haven't, you won't be disappointed.

A Quality Read

An excellent read! Kellerman's detective novels are good, but I think perhaps she has found her true calling in historical fiction. The Quality of Mercy is a fast-paced, enthralling, and diverse novel, switching easily from adventure to intrigue to romance and back again. The characters are absorbing; likable yet very human. By the time the reader has finished following Shakespeare, Rebecca, and co. through their myriad adventures, which follow such timeless themes as fighting, gambling, crossdressing, and prostitution, he will wonder where the six hundred pages have gone. Nothing, though, will prepare him for the cold shock of the ending, which is excellent, but will bring all but the most stoic individuals to tears. This book is highly recommended to anyone with an interest in Faye Kellerman, Shakespeare, Judaism, or historical fiction.

combo: romance, history, adventure, mystery, drama, poetry

This book really held my attention. It was a wonderful combination of romance (William Shakespeare and the wonderful Rebecca), history (yes, many of the details of the story are true), adventure (a swashbuckling fight on the high seas), and mystery (Shakespeare is trying to avenge the unsolved murder of his best friend). Shakespeare came so alive for me that I longed to meet him while reading this book and for some time afterwards. Not many books make me cry, but I did at the end of this one. I won't tell you the ending, but it inspired true emotion in me

A rolicking Shakespearean mystery

Imagine the detective/protagonist is none other than William Shakespeare, the poet and playwrite! This story is set in the the time of the first Queen Elizabeth, the late 1500's. It combines a murder of Shakespeare's good friend and mentor with a love story complicated by the religious intolerance of the day. The heroine is a Jewess whose family harks from Spain and whose father is a physician to the Queen. The novel romps all over England, the high seas and Spain. It may sound an unlikely combination of circumstances and people, but the story is so well written and so much fun that it is impossible to put down--and at the same time makes one sorry to see it come to a close. Great reading!