Will, the fledgling playwright and poet, and Tuck, the would-be actor and rest-of-the-time ostler, have been enjoying their lives on and behind the stage...if only it wasn't for the occasional interruptions: plague, the closing of the theater for reasons of law or finance, and the occasional murder.

As luck would have it, the dramatic twosome must once again play detective in a case that involves the fates of those near and dear to their hearts as well as certain hoped-to- have-been--forgotten family members.

Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta is all the rage on the London stage, and the young bard wishes to rise to the competition. With companion Tuck at his side, Will makes a sojourn for research purposes into the Elizabethan underworld, where contracts are blood bonds and the quality of mercy is stretched to its very limits. He becomes embroiled in a tangle of unlucky young lovers, anti-Semitism, and rogue justice.