The eagerly anticipated Shardlake novel from the number one bestselling author.
C. J. Sansom was educated at Birmingham University, where he took a BA and then a PhD in history. After working in a variety of jobs, he retrained as a solicitor and practised in Sussex, until becoming a full-time writer. Sansom is the bestselling author of the critically acclaimed Shardlake series, as well as Winter in Madrid and Dominion. He lives in Sussex. Discover more at www.cjsansom.com and facebook.com/CJSansomAuthor
This gripping new novel by the inventive C. J. Sansom shows that,
when it comes to intriguing Tudor-based narratives, Hilary Mantel
has a serious rival. Mantel isn't the only novelist to keep the
Tudor flag flying in the bestseller lists. The first two novels in
her Thomas Cromwell trilogy - Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the
Bodies (2012) - have won phenomenal acclaim as well as two Man
Booker prizes. But years before she began that enterprise C. J.
Sansom had embarked on a brilliantly inventive Tudor fiction
sequence, whose five novels have brought him an enormously
enthusiastic and widespread readership, too. Like Mantel's,
Sansom's first two novels - Dissolution (2003) and Dark Fire (2004)
- are set during Cromwell's time as Henry VIII's chief minister.
But, in contrast to her mannered approach and enthralled fixation
on Cromwell, his fiction has a far faster narrative pace and fans
out across a much broader field. Ingeniously, it achieves this by
combining a keen scholarly intelligence with the suspense and
surprises of the detective genre. A Scottish historian who had a
career in law before turning to fiction, Sansom finds an ideal
protagonist in Matthew Shardlake, the humane hunchbacked
lawyer-sleuth in his Tudor novels. He also finds the Tudor period
intensely congenial to his imagination. Atmospheres of oppression
and wariness, in which careless words or an ill-advised allegiance
can be fatal, engross Sansom. Exploring different types of fiction,
he has published two non-Tudor novels - Winter in Madrid (2006), a
spy story located in the traumatised Spanish capital after the
civil war, and Dominion (2012), an "alternate history" set in a
1952 Britain which is a dingy satellite of the Third Reich. Franco
and Hitler loom over terrorised societies in both these books. In
his Tudor novels, Henry VIII does so. A 16th-century portrait of
Catherine Parr: Sansom is fascinated by Henry VIII's sixth wife.
Sansom likes to vary his fiction's forms, and the Shardlake novels
range from a closed-community whodunit in a snowbound monastery
(Dissolution) to the quest for a deadly weapon of war (Dark Fire),
a political thriller (Sovereign, 2006), a serial-killer story
(Revelation, 2008) and a legal thriller (Heartstone, 2010). What
unites them is the havoc wreaked by Henry VIII's brutal ideological
vacillations, as the nation is ripped apart by sectarian fanaticism
and splendours of ecclesiastical architecture are reduced to rubble
. . . Partly a detective story as Shardlake solves the how and why
of the theft, partly a thriller with casualties mounting in the
search for the book's whereabouts, partly a panoramic re-creation
of the turbulent London of 1546, from the court's gilded warren of
intrigue to publishers' makeshift huts in the shadow of St Paul's,
Lamentation is sure to give Sansom's many fans further cause for
jubilation.
*Sunday Times*
Shardlake's back and better than ever . . . The plot and pacing
make this the best Shardlake yet . . . it is a vision of how
individuals find the moral courage to fight injustice which links
the Shardlake novels to Sansom's other fictions, Winter in Madrid
and Dominion. Lamentation, like its predecessors, is a triumph both
as detective fiction and as a novel . . . Sansom's deep feeling for
the psychology of religious faith and for the defenceless, makes
him, in my view superior to Hilary Mantel.
*Independent on Sunday*
Lamentation starts with the burning of heretics, and the smell of
fear and dissent infuses the whole novel . . . Sansom is highly
skilled at weaving together the threads of his plot with the real
and riveting history . . . Lamentation is a wonderful, engaging
read. The atmosphere of fear and suspicion is brilliantly rendered.
Shardlake is always convincing, and he is endearingly
battle-scarred and weary from his earlier adventures. The real
characters are well drawn, especially Catherine Parr and the young
Elizabeth, who makes a striking cameo appearance. Sansom cleverly
keeps the king just off stage for most of the novel. We can sense
him lurking in the shadows - a monstrously obese and malevolent
presence. As the plot draws to a clever and satisfying conclusion,
Sansom gives us a clue about where the king's death will take
Shardlake; and it is a spine-tingling prospect.
*The Times*
As always, Sansom conjures the atmosphere, costumes and smells of
Tudor London with vigour, from the gilded halls of Whitehall Palace
to the dungeons of the Tower . . . once Shardlake finds himself in
real jeopardy [the novel] quickly picks up pace, all the way to a
shocking climax that promises to mark a new chapter for Shardlake,
and for England.
*Observer*
Sansom brilliantly conveys the uncertainty of the time when a frail
young prince would ascend the throne with different factions
fighting for regency . . . Sansom has the gift of plunging us into
the different worlds of the period: the premises of a struggling
young printer whose only asset is his press, a dangerous possession
when this newfangled invention could implicate the printer in
treason and heresy . . . There is a sadness about this novel which
suggests that Shardlake's own world is breaking up - his great
companion, Barak, who provides the physical strength the disabled
lawyer lacks, gets into fearful straits - but it ends on a hopeful
note for the many followers of this splendid series, which combines
the imaginative insights of fiction with scholarly research. We see
Shardlake carried safely downriver to join the budding court of the
young Elizabeth, auguring well for his future.
*Independent*
So engrossing is the tale that I didn't pause long enough to take a
note. Even when judged by the high standards of the earlier
Shardlake novels, this one stands out - not least because it
successfully maintains suspense for over 600 pages . . . It is a
mark of authorial self-discipline that Sansom wears his
considerable historical research lightly, subordinating it to
character and action. As in the earlier volumes, historical figures
such as Richard Rich and the young William Cecil are successfully
evoked without typecasting or self-indulgence disguised as empathy.
There are also some memorable minor characters, such as the tragic
and vexatious litigant, Isabel Slanning, who contribute to the
sinuously-unfolding story in often unexpected ways. The
orchestration of plot over 600 pages, and the final twist, is
literary craft of a high order. Historical fiction - especially
historical crime fiction - has often been regarded as a literary
branchline, interesting and picturesque but not quite the real
thing. This now is changing, and rightly, since the qualities
required to evoke imagined historical worlds are precisely those
involved in rendering the present. With the Shardlake series, and
with this volume in particular, Sansom has surely established
himself as one of the best novelists around.
*Spectator*
This is a terrific book . . . It is a convincing account of a cruel
and fascinating period and a very exciting read.
*Literary Review*
...the Tudor Holmes finds himself plunged into crisis at the
English Court...Sansom
recreates a fascinating era as he carries the reader along with
Shardlake on his diligent and
perilous quest, criss-crossing medieval London from the luxury of
the royal palaces at
Whitehall to the filthy backstreets of the city.
*Daily Mail*
...a dark and atmospheric story... Shardlake deserves his wide and
rapturous readership.
*The Times*
Sansom has an extraordinary gift for atmosphere: he immerses the
reader in the sights, sounds, smells and dreadful paranoia of life
in the last days of Henry VIII . . . Utterly gripping
*Irish Times, Books of the Year*
Chosen as one of Antonia Fraser's Books of the Year.
*Antonia Fraser*
This, the sixth of CJ Sansom's Shardlake novels, unsurprisingly
went straight to the top of the bestseller list as soon as it was
published. Such is their reputation. Every book is a delight, and
each one that little bit better than the last... Sansom's skill as
a writer , coupled with his exhaustive research, makes readers feel
as if they are living in the period he is writing about. Hilary
Mantel may gobble up the big literary prizes for her explorations
of the complex mind of Shardlake's old boss, Thomas Cromwell, but
when it comes to recreating the authentic atmosphere of 500 years
ago Sansom wins hands down.
*Tribune*
Packed with accurate and atmospheric historical detail... In a
crowded Tudor field, this novel finds Sansom again at the top of
his game.
*Daily Telegraph*
Sansom's inventive Tudor fiction sequence combines a scholarly
intelligence with the suspense and surprises of the detective
genre... Lamentation is sure to give Sansom's many fans further
cause for jubilation.
*Sunday Times*
Highly intelligent historical fiction and a guaranteed
chart-topper
*Daily Express*
Sansom cleverly keeps the king just off stage for most of the novel
but we can sense his monstrously obese and malevolent presence
lurking in the shadows. The threads of Sansom's plot are skilfully
woven together with real and riveting history
*The Times*
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