Gary Blackwood

The Year of the Hangman is a young adult alternate history novel written by Gary Blackwood and published in 2002. It was a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year in 2002.

A delightful adveture full of humor and heart set in Elizabethan England! Widge is an orphan with a rare talent for shorthand. His fearsome master has just one demand: steal Shakespeare's play "Hamlet"--or else. Widge has no choice but to follow orders, so he works his way into the heart of the Globe Theatre, where …