The Book of Air and ShadowsThe Book of Air and Shadows is a thriller novel by Michael Gruber published in 2007.Plot summarySet concurrently in the 17th century and the current century, the novel is an intriguing and complex thriller based on the mystery of William Shakespeare. Jake Mishkin, a lonely and troubled lapsed Catholic intellectual property lawyer teams up with a young man, Albert Crosetti, who has taken a job at an antiquarian bookstore in the hope of saving enough to fund his studies at NYU film school. Together they hunt for Shakespeare's elusive lost manuscript.