The Dane as never seen before -- in a daring, dazzling, sexy prose retelling of ShakespeareтАЩs tragedy by best-selling author John Marsden. (Age 14 and up)
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, but Hamlet canтАЩt be sure whatтАЩs causing the stench. His rage at his motherтАЩs infidelities -- together with his greed for the sensual Ophelia and his dead fatherтАЩs call to revenge a "murder most foul" -- have his mind in chaos, and he wants to scatter his traitorous uncleтАЩs insides across the fields. But was it really his fatherтАЩs ghost that night on the ramparts, or a hell-fiend sent to trick him? "Action is hot," he tells Ophelia, who lives shut up in a tower with her longings and lust. "Action is courage, and reflection is cowardly. Picking up the knife has the colors of truth. As soon as I hesitate. . . ." In this dark, erotically charged, beautifully crafted novel, John Marsden brings one of ShakespeareтАЩs most riveting characters to full-blooded life in a narrative of intense psychological complexity.