Corfu has always been the pet theory for Shakespeare aficionados as the setting for the Tempest. There is very little to go by to come up with this theory. The bard was famous for taking a loan from any story he came across. Having certain names crop up in the play and on the island is no great clue. And fiction is fiction, there should be no earthly realm to be found.
In keeping with the setting, the heroine is a young and not successful actress enjoying a holiday sponsored by her billionaire sister. Also present are the Gales. The father is the most renowned interpreter of Shakespeare, the son is a well known composer. They cohabit in a way, the Gales in the grand mansion, the sisters in a villa in the grounds, with a photographer in the second villa.
Things start to turn weird; a dolphin comes into the beach and shot at, people move around the grounds in the middle of the night, and the Gales are virtually cut off from humanity by their antisocial attitude. The actress with too much time on her hand and a sister incapacitated by a pregnancy almost at term, finds herself meeting just about everybody except the Duke of Milan.
While the book doesn't serve as a tour guide as so many others of Mary Stewart's novels, it is masterly in describing the population living on the island and their religious roots and beliefs. If you plan a holiday for late spring and don't know where to go, this book might just sway your vote. Greece and the islands are best visited before the tourist hordes descend like locusts on Egypt's fields.
The mystery and the twists and turns visited upon the reader by the author make it a real page turner. I have to admit though, at times you will say things like 'really? isn't there anything more stupid you could do?' when talking to the heroine. But nobody ever accused actresses of being intellectual giants. The clumsiness of the heroine doesn't detract from the mystery. That the mystery is linked to actual European history during the Cold War is a bonus.
This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart has been out of print for many years. It is available for Kindle on Amazon. The book was first published in 1964, but despite that it doesn't feel dated, just a document of the times when there was no internet and no cell phones were ringing all the time. Immerse yourself into the frontline of the Cold War on the border between Greece and Albania.
Further reading
Mystery On Crete
Mystery in Delphi
Wedding Vows on the Rocks
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