Luisa Villareal has worked her entire life to find a place in academia. Her love of Shakespeare has driven her, since middle school, to higher and higher levels of scholarship. Now, in April 2014, she finally has her chance to make it at an Ivy League institution.
After convincing a renowned association and her university, Assistant Professor Villareal prepares to host the association's annual Shakespeare symposium. Moreover, 2014 marked the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth and death, giving the event added mystique.
However, the morning of the symposium's opening day, the body of a young woman is discovered in the university's arboretum. The young woman has been drowned. But more than that, the murderer has left a garland of flowers around her neck. A chance encounter with an employee familiar with the situation leads Villareal to conclude this is no random act of violence. Villareal realizes that the flowers around the young woman's neck are none other than those the character Ophelia distributes prior to her death in Shakespeare's most-famous of plays "Hamlet".
Before long, Villareal joins forces with local detectives Ryan Kelly and Sarah Choo, as well as campus officer Antonio Guerrera to find the killer. But, it does not end there. Soon, murders follow, and the four find themselves on the trail of a serial killer intent on recreating some of Shakespeare's most famous deaths. The question is, why?
If It Were Done is a fast-paced thriller and literary adventure for any fan of mysteries, Shakespeare or both. It is the first of three novels in the series.
