By C. J. Sansom

The fourth book in the series sees Shardlake far removed from politics, following his request to Archbishop Cranmer at the end of the previous book, Sovereign.

The year is 1543. Henry VIII’s tyrannical reign is in a state of flux. He’s now giving up on his new religion and is reverting to Catholic traditions, minus the bit about the Pope being the head.

The streets are an unsettling place, as people no longer know what to believe. Two whales wash up in the Thames, yet another sign from above that the world is going to end.

Shardlake, once a reformer, has seen enough over the years to make him agnostic. Would that everyone else could be like that. Unfortunately, such is not the case, especially as one villain, who has taken it upon himself to murder people who have lost their convictions in gruesome ways which mirror the prophecies in the book of Revelations. The final target may even be Catherine Parr, recently widowed, and desired by the king.

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By C. J. Sansom

The return of the hunchback Poirot Matthew Shardlake.

Three years have elapsed since our initial meeting with him at the behest of Thomas Cromwell.

The story is set in London, and we start off with what could very much be a modern theme: Trial by media. The printing press means that the common people have access to reading materials including newspapers that are hawked in the street, sold by soundbite vendors. “Girl murders boy and throws him down a well!” Shardlake reflects that this girl cannot have a fair trial. The jury will not be impartial since they are drawn from the public who pass these vendors and read these papers.

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By C. J. Sansom

I tell you, C. J. Sansom stumbled on greatness when he came up with the idea of his Shardlake books, as did I when I chanced upon one in a discount bookstore and purchased it.

The premise is simple; somebody should have done this years ago. He has his version of Hercule Poirot, Matthew Shardlake. Whereas Poirot is a dandified, short Belgian with a distinctive upturned moustache and persistant stomach ailments, Shardlake is a self-conscious hunchback with anti-Papist beliefs. The real genius, however, is that he lives during the reign of King Henry VIII. There’s so much to play around with, a rich tapestry of history to weave during a time of great turbulence in England.

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By C J Sansom

A new author to me. I’d picked up his book Sovereign with which I had quickly become enamoured, and I resolved to work through his others in short order.

Winter In Madrid is the only one that Sansom has written so far that stands alone; it’s not set in the times of Henry VIII like his others. This one occurs in Spain during its civil war, its roots lying in a military uprising funded by Juan March in 1936.

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By C. J. Sansom

A new supersleuth! Well, a sixteenth-century supersleuth, but a damned good one.

The premise is a good one, and I wonder why I’ve not come across it before. There are crime thrillers, there are history books, but are there crime thrillers set way back in history? None that I’ve ever crossed before, but this is what happens in this series.

As it happens, Sovereign is the third in the series about Matthew Shardlake, a lawyer living at the time of Henry VIII. I picked it up because I liked the cover of the hardback, paper made to look like old parchment. I took it out of the shop because of the mention “Magnificent novels … bring to life the sounds of Tudor England” and the fact that it was on offer as 2 for £5

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