Mark Eklid (2023) Blood on Shakespeare’s Typewriter

I didn’t get this… Shakespeare’s Typewriter. I’d once stopped writing in an exam about a minor Shakespearian villain/hero because I was bored to fuck. There was and is some dispute of who was the playwright called Shakespeare. Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne. She painted her face with lead pain. But I was pretty sure typewriters weren’t invented until the nineteenth century, perhaps earlier, but not 200 years earlier.  Shakespeare, whoever he was, wrote with sharpened quills. I was even aware of the argument that so many monkeys typing indefinitely would produce the collected works of Shakespeare. I’ve had enough Shakespeare for my short/long life. The monkeys can read it.

I hope never to use words or phrases like central conceit. Well, here it is. Dan Khan buys a typewriter from a geezer in a pub for £50. That’s a lot of money for him. He’s unemployed and his girlfriend Shannon works in Asda to help pay the rent. But he’s dreams of being a writer. The deal is clinched when he’s told this was the typewriter Shakespeare used to type his folios.

A bit of Shakespeare might rub off on Dan Khan. Even if it didn’t become the main man, Dan knew Shakespeare’s folios were selling online for millions. Whatever way he played it, he was going to be rich and he was going to buy Shannon all the things she ever wanted. It was the best £50 he ever spent.

The problem with happy-ever after endings is they’re rarely happy. The guy that sold the typewriter to Dan offers to buy it back for double what he paid for it. He helps confirm what Dan and Shannon already know. They’re not going to be made fools of.

Steig Larsson, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest has Lisbeth Salander as a protagonist and outsider. Despite her diminutive size, she can kick ass and right all wrongs. Nothing that is encrypted is a match for her talents. Justice will be done.  

Shakespeare’s typewriter might not be Shakespeare’s typewriter, but it holds the fiche files of Sheffield’s main crime lord.  He wants it returned after his house was looted and for those involved to be erased, with maximum pain as payback. Dan and Shannon have only Salamander-type characters and friends to fall back on as the cops offer little protection. Read on.