Learning upon his arrival that his melancholy host's father has just died and his mother has instantly remarried his uncle, Nick is naturally struck by the similarities between the young man's woeful story of the Eliot family and William Shakespeare's latest play for the Chamberlain's Men-Hamlet. Nick suspects foul play and sets out to discover the circumstances of the old man's death. Already convinced that something is indeed very rotten in the state of the wealthy Eliot household, Nick stumbles upon evidence that proves his host's father did not die a death entirely natural.More disturbingly, the finger of suspicion points toward Southwark, and Nick finds himself investigating his employer, the celebrated playwright and shareholder in the Chamberlain's Men: Mr. William Shakepeare.