A chilling reflection: Nicholas Shakespeare's new book hits hard in today's political context. The British author reflects on how his latest novel, Frame 37, resonates more deeply now than it would have half a decade ago.
Rain pounds down. A furious wind tears at the pine trees. Feral dogs prowl the north shore of Lake Superior, near the Terry Fox Memorial. It could be a landscape from hell, where frightening things happen—and they do when the dogs forage through undergrowth and expose the remains of a murdered man.
The crime is a political act, rooted in the subterranean depths of Washington, D.C., conspiracy. In his new novel, award-winning author Nicholas Shakespeare adds an ironic twist: a hired killer drives to safety along the Thunder Bay expressway, relaxing to Neil Young's Rocking In The Free World on the car radio.
A Story for the Trump Era
Shakespeare finds he has written a story that could only be happening in the age of U.S. President Donald Trump. "I don't usually write novels that are consciously trying to reflect the state of the world," he confesses. "Yet I very much find that this novel is suddenly doing just that."
Years ago, while traveling westward on the Trans-Canada Highway with his Icelandic-Canadian wife, he discovered the Fox memorial. He was struck by the fictional possibilities of the setting. "It started a seed that would germinate when I started writing this novel," he says.
Plot and Themes
The Trans-Canada Highway provides some of Frame 37's most frightening moments. A man dies there because he possesses knowledge that could destroy another man's presidential ambitions. Shakespeare cuts a wide swath, moving backward and forward in time, taking the reader to Tasmania, Argentina, the sinister backrooms of Washington politics, and—crucially—Michigan, where memories of a vicious unpunished crime from 40 years before have risen from the ashes.
People are now dying because of what they witnessed in their youth.
Real-World Parallels
Shakespeare initially set aside the novel to write a biography of Ian Fleming, published to rave reviews in 2026. When he returned to Frame 37, he found his plot being mimicked by real events. Two examples: E. Jean Carroll's successful courtroom victory against Trump for sexual assault, and the charges leveled against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings.
"I think the real world actually defies our understanding," Shakespeare says. "As a novelist, you have to find ways of fashioning it into a more realistic narrative."
The Wall Street Journal has hailed him as "one of the best English novelists of our time." Shakespeare has a less lofty view. "I've always been interested in stories that can't be told," he says. With a reporter's eye from his earlier journalism career, he now takes stock of the book he has written.
