New York Times Bestseller!
Shakespeare meets Dashiell Hammett in this wildly entertaining murder
mystery from New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore--an
uproarious, hardboiled take on the Bard's most performed play, A
Midsummer Night's Dream, featuring Pocket, the hero of Fool and The
Serpent of Venice, along with his sidekick, Drool, and pet monkey,
Jeff.
Set adrift by his pirate crew, Pocket of Dog Snogging--last seen in The
Serpent of Venice--washes up on the sun-bleached shores of Greece,
where he hopes to dazzle the Duke with his comedic brilliance and become
his trusted fool.
But the island is in turmoil. Egeus, the Duke's minister, is furious
that his daughter Hermia is determined to marry Demetrius, instead of
Lysander, the man he has chosen for her. The Duke decrees that if, by
the time of the wedding, Hermia still refuses to marry Lysander, she
shall be executed . . . or consigned to a nunnery. Pocket, being Pocket,
cannot help but point out that this decree is complete bollocks, and
that the Duke is an egregious weasel for having even suggested it.
Irritated by the fool's impudence, the Duke orders his death. With the
Duke's guards in pursuit, Pocket makes a daring escape.
He soon stumbles into the wooded realm of the fairy king Oberon, who, as
luck would have it, IS short a fool. His jester Robin Goodfellow--the
mischievous sprite better known as Puck--was found dead. Murdered.
Oberon makes Pocket an offer he can't refuse: he will make Pocket his
fool and have his death sentence lifted if Pocket finds out who killed
Robin Goodfellow. But as anyone who is even vaguely aware of the Bard's
most performed play ever will know, nearly every character has a motive
for wanting the mischievous sprite dead.
With too many suspects and too little time, Pocket must work his own
kind of magic to find the truth, save his neck, and ensure that all ends
well.
A rollicking tale of love, magic, madness, and murder, Shakespeare for
Squirrels is a Midsummer Night's noir--a wicked and brilliantly funny
good time conjured by the singular imagination of Christopher Moore.
