All of us who profess an interest in mysteries, the murder kind or the universe kind, must at some point have wondered just exactly what influence Shakespeare had on both kinds. He influenced everything else, so why not examine the modern murder mystery to capture his living spirit, his universal genius, and his gift for invention in language. Plus, we can steal ideas from him, which is only fair since he stole all his ideas.

The Real Golden Age

1. Mrs. Polonius on the China Station, Dorothy Gilman

2. Parnell, Parnell, Wherefore Art Thou Parnell? Juliet Hall

3. Blocks, Stones, Worse Than Useless Things, Ceasar Grisham

4. Love's Labour's Lost; Call Nick Velvet, Edward D. Hoch

5. The Merry Wives of Maggody, Joan Hathaway

6. To Be Or Not To Be The Thin Man, Dashiell Hamlet

7. A Is For As You Like It, An Interactive Mystery by Sue Grafton

8. The Two Gentlemen of West 35th Street, Rex Stout

9. The Quality of Mercy, an unpublished manuscript by Robert James Waller

10. Measure for Measure, Ewww!, Patricia Cornwell

11. Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Camilla Crespi

12. Smilla's Sense of the Winter's Tale, Peter Hoegh

13. All the World's a Stage, and These Bones Were Made for Dancin', Annette Meyers

14. This Rough Magic, by David Copperfield

15. The Rest is Silence, anyone in the throes of writer's block

Submitted by Polly Whitney, who has dibs on Cymbeline, an unusual murder method engineered by a drummer.