The Pale Guest (2002), nominated for the Ellis Peters Award for Best Historical Mystery, is one of a series of “Shakespearean” novels by the English writer Philip Gooden. Shakespeare's contemporary Nick Revill, an actor in the Lord Carmerger's troupe and an amateur detective, again becomes an accidental witness to mysterious and tragic events. This time the actors travel to Salisbury to give a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream on the occasion of the wedding of Lord Elcombe's eldest son. Contrary to expectations, “a midsummer night's dream” turns into a nightmare with murders and “skeletons in the closet” of a noble family.