Gertrude and Claudius are the ';villains' of Hamlet: he the killer of Hamlet's father and usurper of the Danish throne, she his lusty consort, who marries Claudius before her late husband's body is cold. But in this imaginative ';prequel' to the play, John Updike makes a case for the royal couple that Shakespeare only hinted at. Gertrude and Claudius are seen afresh against a background of fond intentions and family dysfunction, on a stage darkened by the ominous shadow of a sullen, erratic, disaffected prince. ';I hoped to keep the texture light,' Updike said of this novel, ';to move from the mists of Scandinavian legend into the daylight atmosphere of the Globe. I sought to narrate the romance that preceded the tragedy.'