On a sleepless night walk, Lily Bard watches a hooded figure push her own garbage cart into the park across the street. In the plastic bags on the cart is the dead body of Pardon Albee, who owns the apartment building next door. Charlaine Harris published this murder mystery with St. Martin’s Press in July 1996, as the first of five Lily Bard novels.
What Is Shakespeare’s Landlord About?
Lily is 31 and has lived in the town of Shakespeare, Arkansas, for four years. It is a fictional place with Little Rock and Memphis within reach. She bought her small home from Albee, and she runs a cleaning and errand-running service. Many of her clients are his tenants.
She reports the dead landlord anonymously to Police Chief Claude Friedrich. It does not keep her out of the investigation for long. Friedrich learns about her past, and the secretive loner becomes a prime suspect. To prove her innocence, Lily looks for the real killer among the people she works for. She knows their closets, their drawers and their habits, and now she has to work out which of them is a murderer.
Lily Bard: A Cleaner Who Turned Her Body Into a Weapon
Lily is not the usual amateur sleuth. She was a National Merit Scholar who finished college with top grades, and now she scrubs other people’s floors. She is a body builder and studies goju karate in classes run by Marshall Sedaka. He is estranged from his wife, Thea, and Lily grows close to him.
She keeps everyone else at arm’s length because of a violent attack in Memphis that left her scarred, physically and emotionally. The novel reveals it slowly, and we will not spell it out here. The Lily Bard series deals with sexual assault and its aftermath, and this first novel also has violence and several sex scenes.
Our Review: A Small-Town Mystery With a Hard Edge
The setup is classic: a victim nobody liked, a building full of tenants and a sleuth who knows their secrets. The voice is not classic. Lily narrates in short, plain sentences. She is a character who never asks for pity, and that restraint makes her memorable. Publishers Weekly praised the novel as colorful and suspenseful. Library Journal said Lily gives new meaning to the strong-woman type.
The plot is the weaker side. Kirkus felt the tension of the first chapters fades quickly, and the middle does drift while Lily sorts out her private life. If you like a darker lead and a real sense of place, it is worth your time. Fans of Susan Wittig Albert’s China Bayles mysteries will recognize the type: a capable woman who left her old life behind for a quiet place.
The Lily Bard Series in Order: Five Books and an Omnibus
- Shakespeare’s Landlord (July 1996)
- Shakespeare’s Champion (December 1997)
- Shakespeare’s Christmas (November 1998)
- Shakespeare’s Trollop (August 2000)
- Shakespeare’s Counselor (November 2001)
Each novel solves its own case, but Lily’s life moves on throughout the five books. In book 2 she meets private investigator Jack Leeds, and by the fifth she works for him, so read them in order. A short story, “Dead Giveaway”, followed in 2001. In the UK, Gollancz also published a Lily Bard Mysteries Omnibus as an ebook (2010). The only adaptation so far is an interactive game of the first novel, released in 2018.
What Genre Does Charlaine Harris Write?
Harris started in traditional mysteries and moved into urban fantasy:
- lighter, cozier mysteries: the Aurora Teagarden novels (from 1990), and the darker Lily Bard novels (1996–2001);
- paranormal mysteries: the vampire series of Sookie Stackhouse (2001–2013) and the Harper Connelly series, which starts with Grave Sight (2005);
- supernatural fiction: the Midnight, Texas trilogy (2014–2016);
- alternate history: the Gunnie Rose novels (2018–2025).
Which is the best? No critic ranks them, but the Sookie novels are by far the best known. There are 13 of them, from Dead Until Dark (2001) to Dead Ever After (2013). They became HBO’s True Blood, and our Dead Until Dark review lists them all in order. The Lily Bard novels sold only moderately, yet Harris calls writing them “a cathartic experience”.
Is Charlaine Harris Still Writing Books?
Yes. Her newest novel is The Last Wizards’ Ball (July 2025), the sixth and final Gunnie Rose title. A new fantasy series opens with Hold My Spellbook in February 2027. Her novels have sold more than 39 million copies, and the Mystery Writers of America named her a Grand Master in 2021.
Harris was born in Tunica, Mississippi, in 1951, and lived for many years in Magnolia. She has said that she took up martial arts and weightlifting after she was assaulted in her own home at 25. That, she says, is why her heroines strike back. Lily is the clearest example.
Quick Facts
| Title | Shakespeare’s Landlord |
|---|---|
| Author | Charlaine Harris |
| Series | Lily Bard Mysteries, book 1 of 5 |
| First published | July 1996, St. Martin’s Press (Thomas Dunne Books) |
| Setting | Shakespeare, a fictional small town |
| Sleuth | Lily Bard, a cleaner with a hidden past |
| Audiobook | Unabridged, narrated by Julia Gibson (Recorded Books, 2009), 6 h 49 min |
| Adaptation | Interactive game (One More Story Games, 2018) |
| Next book | Shakespeare’s Champion |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it a cozy mystery?
Partly. It has the amateur sleuth and the closed circle of suspects. Its lead and its themes are much darker than in most cozies.
Is Shakespeare, Arkansas, a real place?
No. Harris invented it, along with Lily’s hometown, Bartley. Both resemble several small communities in the state.
Who narrates the audiobook?
Julia Gibson reads the unabridged Recorded Books edition, which runs just under seven hours. She narrates the whole series.