Murder, history, politics, religious reformation. Watching Queens come and go. Good Catholics having their saints and idols removed from churches, their monasteries dissolved and monks thrown out into the streets. And all because your Monarch, who you are fast going off, wanted a divorce and it wasn't granted by the Pope. Oh, and murders and the solving of them of course.
It's all here in this fabulous series of chunky reads, The Shardlake series.
We join Matthew Shardlake, barrister at Lincolns Inn. It's 1547. Henry VIII is on the throne and has, with the help of Thomas Cromwell his right hand man, divorced his first Queen and broken away from the Church of Rome. Matthew is clever, honourable, reliable, a reformer... and a hunchback. Cromwell knows of Shardlake's reputation as man who can be trusted with confidential matters and who doesn't give up until he's sorted it, and has approached Matthew to solve a murder in a monastery that is about to be dissolved. The King's man has been killed and he wants to know who and why. The times are extremely tenuous; there are spies everywhere. No one is safe. Anyone outspoken on religious matters is likely to end up on the rack. Shardlake just wants a quiet life. Cromwell wants answers. So starts the first book Dissolution.
I'm not a big fan of mucked about history, so love the way C. J. Sansom weaves his stories around the events of the time. His descriptions of the filth in the streets, the fear of the common people, the conniving of wealthy families, both Protestants and Catholics, manoeuvring their daughters and nieces into the King's circle in the hope that their family/beliefs will benefit, the buildings, the rubbish rotting on the banks of the Thames when the tide is out, the heads on spikes outside the Tower. That's not even accounting for the murders Shardlake and his assistant, Jack Barak, are called on to solve.
For Tudor history it's hard to go past Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies, who presents us a view from inside the Royal Court and the life of Thomas Cromwell, who started life as a blacksmith's son and achieved greatness as Henry VIII's Chancellor. Not forgetting Susanna Gregory who also writes historical mysteries with the protaganist of Matthew Bartholomew.
Having recently sung the praises of these books to my brother (he promptly read one after the other until there were no more) and to several library customers their response was the same, "read that one, where's the next?" The Shardlake covers are not enticing but don't be put off. My colleague Roberta Smith is also a fan as you can see from her blog on Serial killers.
Do you like history? A good murder mystery? Being gripped by a good story? The Shardlake series could be to your taste, methinks.
Already a fan? What is it that got you reading the series?
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